Sussex County Housing Trust Fund - Development Fund

For information on the Housing Trust Fund, visit the main page.

More information for Homebuyer applicants can be found on the Homebuyer Assistance page.

Development Fund

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

  • Expand and create affordable housing opportunities for Sussex County households earning 65% or less of Area Median Income (AMI).
  • Funding pre-development and capital costs of affordable rental and homeownership housing.
  • Provide essential gap financing and local government support and leverage for other financing of the proposed project.

FUNDING SOURCE

American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars fund the Developer Grant Program.

FUNDING AVAILABILITY

SCHTF made available $6,000,000 in grant funding to qualifying applicants for the creation or preservation of affordable housing. The funding was divided into three funding rounds – beginning in the spring of 2022 and completing in the spring of 2024. The program will be reassessed following the expenditure of ARPA funding in 2024.

  • Funding Round 3 – Spring 2024 - $2,000,000
    • Application Available – April 1, 2024
    • Virtual Technical Assistance Forum for Applicants - April 16, 2024 @ 2 pm (must email bnauman@sussexcountyde.gov in advance for meeting link)
    • Application Due – April 30, 2024 by 4:00 p.m.
    • <Tentative> Award Recommendations and Council Consideration– June 4, 2024
  • Funding Round 2 – Spring 2023 
    • Application Available – April 3, 2023
    • Application Due – May 1, 2023 by 4:00 p.m.
    • Award Recommendations and Council Consideration– June 13, 2023
  • Funding Round 1 – Spring 2022 
    • Application Available – April 1, 2022
    • Application Due – April 29, 2022 by 4:00 p.m.
    • Award Recommendations and Council Approval – June 28, 2022

REQUIREMENTS & REPORTING

Due to the infusion of ARPA funds into the SCHTF, all expenditures must satisfy an eligible purpose as stipulated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury (“Treasury”) in the final rule for the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF). The SLFRF Final Rule (“the Rule”) contains detailed descriptions of eligible and ineligible activities that may be funded with SLFRF. For Sussex County’s Housing Trust Fund, recipients must use it as identified below.

To track all expenditures of SLFRF funds and to fulfill the County’s own reporting requirements per Treasury guidelines, the County requires full reporting of any activities performed with fiscal recovery funds for any successful applicant (Subrecipient). The reports must be presented to the County quarterly. Reports will be due to the County by the 10th of the following month. Subrecipients are also required to register and maintain an updated profile on SAM.gov. General reporting information is available in the SLFRF Compliance and Reporting Guidelines Update. Further reporting information will be provided should your application result in a subaward.

Subrecipients must have and use documented procurement procedures, and they must be consistent with the procurement standards set forth in the Uniform Guidance at 2CFR 200.317 thru 2 CFR 200.327 as applicable. Per Uniform Guidance, small purchases, which are in excess of the micro purchase threshold of $10,000, need adequate price quotes and anything over the simplified acquisition threshold of $250,000 will need to follow formal procurement procedures. If a subrecipient’s procurement policies are more restrictive than Uniform Guidance that procurement policy should be followed.

ELIGIBLE USES

  • Predevelopment Costs
    • Legal fees, architect fees, engineering fees
  • Capital Costs
    • Construction, Rehabilitation

ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS

Please reference Sussex County’s Affordable Housing Support Policy for context.

Eligible applicants must be able to justify their conformance with the criteria listed below.

  1. Homeownership: Sussex County considers an affordable housing project to be a housing project in which any portion thereof is designed or intended to serve households earning less than 125 percent of the Area Median Income for Sussex County as calculated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development annually, and which is comprised of at least one of the following elements:
    1. Seeking participation in Sussex County’s Moderately Priced Housing Unit (MPHU) Program
    2. Applying for funding by the Delaware State Housing Authority’s (DSHA) Housing Development Fund (HDF)
    3. Applying for HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME) funding through DSHA
    4. Applying for a Section 523 or 524 Rural Housing Site Loan through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development
    5. Sussex County Habitat for Humanity
    6. Milford Housing Development Corporation
    7. Community Land Trust
    8. Other elements which, in the County’s discretion, meet the goals and objectives set forth in the Affordable Housing Support Policy Mission Statement.
  2. Rental: Sussex County considers an affordable rental housing project to be a rental housing project in which any portion thereof is designed or intended to serve households earning less than 80 percent of the Area Median Income for Sussex County as calculated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development annually, and which is comprised of at least one of the following elements:
    1. Seeking participation in the Sussex County Rental Program (SCRP)
    2. Applying for funding by the Delaware State Housing Authority’s (DSHA) Housing Development Fund (HDF)
    3. Applying for HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME) funding through DSHA
    4. Applying for funding by DSHA’s Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) program
    5. Applying for Multi-Family Mortgage Revenue Bond Program (MFMRB) financing through DSHA
    6. Applying for a Rural Rental Housing Loan through USDA Rural Development
    7. Applying for a Guaranteed Rental Housing Loan through USDA Rural Development
    8. Community Land Trust