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The United States Department of Agriculture Rural Housing Service (RHS) is accepting preapplications for Housing Preservation Grants with a total funding availability of $13.1 million. The anticipated award amounts may range between $30,000 and $100,000. Preapplications are due by September 4, 2025.

What is the purpose of Housing Preservation Grants (HPG)?

The HPG program is a grant program administered by the Single-Family Housing Programs of RHS. It is limited to eligible rural areas and to qualified entities (see below). Grant funds can be used to assist low- and very low-income homeowners in repairing and rehabilitating their homes in rural areas. Cooperative housing complexes (co-ops) and rental property owners may receive assistance under the HPG program if they agree to make such units available to very low- and low-income persons. Rental property owners, or the co-op, must agree to make the units repaired or rehabilitated available for occupancy to very low- or low-income persons for a period of not less than five years.

Who is eligible to apply?

Eligible entities include state and local governments; non-profit organizations, which may  include, but not be limited to faith-based and community organizations; federally recognized Indian tribes; and consortia of eligible entities. HPG applicants who were previously selected for HPG funds are eligible to submit new preapplications to apply for FY 2025 HPG program funds.

Approximately $2.1 million of this funding is set aside for disaster assistance grants, which  may be made only for certain presidentially declared disasters during calendar year 2022. The full list of eligible disasters and disaster areas can be viewed here.

What are other project eligibility criteria?

• Providing a financially feasible program of housing preservation assistance. ‘‘Financially feasible’’ is defined as proposed assistance which will be affordable to the intended recipient or result in affordable housing for very low- and low-income persons.
• Serving eligible rural areas with a concentration of substandard housing for households of very low- and low income. This includes areas outside Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) identified by having populations below 10,000 or in remote parts of other rural areas (i.e., rural areas contained in MSAs with less than 5,000 population.)

What are the funding levels for this program?

No single entity may be awarded more than 50 percent of a state’s allocation if there are two or more preapplications for a given state that meet the threshold criteria. FY 2025 State Allocations can be obtained from Rural Development State Offices (RDSO; See RDSO contact list here).

An award made for disaster assistance may not exceed a maximum award amount of $50,000, with no state maximum for the number of such disaster assistance awards.

The anticipated award amounts may range between $30,000 and $100,000 but will be based on the state’s allocation and number of eligible applicants.

Based on the Agency’s prior experience with this program, RHS expects to make approximately 100–120 awards.

Is there a cost sharing requirement?

While it is encouraged that HPG funds be leveraged with other resources, cost sharing or matching is not a requirement for the HPG applicant, and the HPG applicant would not necessarily be denied an award of HPG funds if all other required project selection criteria described in this funding round’s Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO).

Still, priority points will be awarded to applicants who leverage cost sharing funds to complete their projects through innovative financial assistance, owner’s contribution, or other specified approaches. These points will be awarded on a sliding scale with a maximum of 20 points awarded to applicants who provide 50 percent of total project costs to their projects. 

What is the grant timeline?

Preapplications are due by September 4, 2025.

Electronic preapplications must be submitted through grants.gov at 11:59 p.m. ET on September 4, 2025.

The deadline for receipt of a paper preapplication is 4:30 p.m. local time, September 4, 2025.

Award notifications are anticipated 120 days after the preapplication deadline (January 2, 2026), and the project performance period is 24 months.

The full NOFO published in the Federal Register can be found here.

Contact the Morrison Grants Team by email at grants@morrisonco.net or call us at 530-893-4764 for more information on this grant and our grant writing services.