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Many first-time CDBG-DR grantees and subgrantees are not aware that they can request waivers from HUD to circumvent or alter HUD regulations. Waivers give grantees more flexibility to meet their specific recovery needs, allowing communities to build back stronger and more quickly.

These tips provide a basic overview of waivers for program administrators and others involved with CDBG-DR program management as a grantee or subgrantee.

Understand the process.

• Grantees may request waivers from HUD; subgrantees, like cities and counties, must request waivers from the grantee, who will then take the request to HUD.
• Grantees can ask for a waiver at any time throughout the program, however, waivers do not become active until five days after being published in a Federal Register notice.

HUD will consider waivers that are regulatory, not statutory.

HUD cannot waive laws, including: requirements for fair housing, nondiscrimination, labor standards (Davis Bacon Act), and the environment.

Some common regulatory waiver requests include:

• Waiving the restriction that CDBG-DR funds cannot be applied to general conduct of government.
  • Example: If a disaster damaged your City Hall or Court House, you may ask for a waiver to use your CDBG-DR allocation to pay for repairs or upgrades to make them more resilient.
• Reducing the requirement that 70 percent of CDBG-DR funds must benefit low-to-moderate-income (LMI) residents and families.
  • This cannot be reduced below 50 percent because more than half of CDBG-DR funds still must benefit LMI residents to meet the fair housing requirement.
  • Example: HUD granted a waiver to reduce the overall LMI requirement to not less than 55 percent for the State of Louisiana’s 2016 CDBG-DR award.
    • See the Federal Register notice this waiver was published in as an example of the data used by the state to justify the request, in addition to the waiver requirements issued by HUD.

Review waivers that HUD has provided to other CDBG-DR grantees in the past.

• This will allow you to see if any waivers issued previously could benefit your program and community.
• Review the information that HUD has requested for previous waivers to ensure the waiver will apply to your situation and to help you prepare for data and information that HUD may require to issue the waiver.

Be prepared to justify your waiver request to HUD.

• Don’t make a waiver request if you can’t explain why it’s important and how it benefits your community.
• Oftentimes, you must back up your request with data collected during the unmet needs assessment. It’s important to keep organized, detailed records of disaster damage, who the disaster impacted, and how much it impacted them.