Deadline: 30-Aug-21
The Department of Transportation DOT/Federal Transit Administration is pleased to announce the 2021 Areas of Persistent Poverty Program to to eligible recipients or subrecipients, or located in areas of persistent poverty.
Funding to implement the Areas of Persistent Poverty Program was appropriated by the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 (Pub. L. 116–94, Dec. 20, 2019) and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (Pub. L. 116–260, Dec. 27, 2020), and will be awarded through a competitive process, as described in this notice.
FTA seeks to use the Areas of Persistent Poverty Program to encourage racial equity in two areas:
- Planning and policies related to racial equity and barriers to opportunity; and
- engineering, or development of technical or financing plans, for project investments that either proactively addresses racial equity and barriers to opportunity, including automobile dependence as a form of barrier, or redress prior inequities and barriers to opportunity.
Funding Information
- FTA intends to award all available funding (approximately $16.26 million) in the form of grants to selected applicants responding to this NOFO.
- Only proposals from eligible recipients for eligible activities will be considered for funding. FTA anticipates a maximum grant award not to exceed $850,000.
- In response to a NOFO that closed on May 4, 2020, FTA received applications for 28 eligible projects requesting a total of $11,062,307. Of the 28 projects, 25 projects were selected and funded for a total of $8.46 million.
Eligibility Criteria
Eligible applicants include States, tribes, and designated or direct recipients eligible that are located in areas of persistent poverty. State departments of transportation may apply on behalf of eligible applicants within their States. Applicants are also encouraged to work with non-profit organizations.
For the funding made available in FY 2021, eligible projects must be located:
- In a county that had greater than or equal to 20 percent of the population living in poverty over the 30-year period preceding the date of enactment of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (Pub. L. 116–260, December 27, 2020), as measured by the 1990 and 2000 decennial census and the most recent Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates, or
- in a census tract with a poverty rate of at least 20 percent as measured by the 2014–2018 five-year data series available from the American Community Survey of the Bureau of the Census; or
- in any territory or possession of the United States.
For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=334511