Grant Background

Communities nationwide are suffering from a lack of affordable housing. Housing production is not meeting the increasing demand for accessible and available units in many urban and rural areas, particularly areas of high opportunity. Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing (PRO Housing) empowers communities that are actively taking steps to remove barriers to affordable housing and seeking to increase housing production and lower housing costs over the long term.  

In 2024, HUD awarded the inaugural PRO Housing competitive grants to 21 winners to advance housing opportunities in communities across 19 states and the District of Columbia. HUD received over 175 applications from nearly every state and territory in the first-round competition. Austin applied for the first-round competition in 2023 but was not selected.

HUD issued the second PRO Housing NOFO, which appropriates $100 million for competitive grant funding for the identification and removal of barriers to affordable housing production and preservation. On October 15, 2024, Austin submitted an application requesting funding to further develop, evaluate, and implement housing policy plans, improve housing strategies, remove regulatory barriers, and facilitate affordable housing production and preservation.

Grant Goals & Objectives

  • Elevate and enable promising practices dedicated to identifying and removing barriers to affordable housing production and preservation, while preventing displacement, including through rewarding jurisdictions that have enacted laws and regulations that will lead to more affordable housing production and preservation
  • Institutionalize state and local analysis and implementation of effective, equitable, and resilient approaches to affordable housing production and preservation
  • Provide technical assistance to help communities better fulfill the Consolidated Plan’s requirement of identifying barriers to affordable housing and implementing solutions to address these barriers
  • Affirmatively further fair housing by addressing and removing barriers that perpetuate segregation, inhibit access to well-resourced areas of opportunity for protected class groups and vulnerable populations, and concentrate affordable housing in under-resourced areas
  • Facilitate collaboration and harness innovative approaches from jurisdictions, researchers, advocates, and stakeholders.

Proposed Activities 

Please visit  www.SpeakUpAustin.org/PROHousingGrant2024 for our most recent application and next steps.