CPD manages the Youthbuild program. CPD programs generally fall into three categories: (1) formula grants, of which the largest are the Community Development Block Grant and the HOME Investment Partnership Program, which account for the majority of CPD funding; (2) competitive homeless programs; and (3) competitive nonhomeless programs, including Youthbuild. While no staff are dedicated solely to Youthbuild oversight, CPD monitors the program as part of its oversight responsibilities for 22 programs and initiatives, which 829 staff (233 in headquarters and 596 in field offices) administered as of the beginning of fiscal year 2007. In fiscal year 2006, Congress appropriated $19.1 billion for the CPD programs and initiatives, of which Youthbuild represents a small portion. The first program appropriation for Youthbuild was $40 million for fiscal year 1993. Appropriations reached a high of $65 million in fiscal year 2002, but dropped to $49.5 million in fiscal year 2006, the last year in which HUD was authorized to award grants (see fig. 1). HUD has provided program funding for Youthbuild through an annual competitive grant application process. Any applicant can receive up to a $700,000 grant; however, new applicants and rural/underserved applicants primarily receive grants up to $400,000. Grant awards can last up to 30 months (or longer if the grantee is given an extension), but some grantees use the funds at a much quicker rate and usually reapply every year, while others may take the full 30 months. Prospective grantees are state, private, nonprofit, and local entities that implement the Youthbuild program by serving low-income youth, ages 16 to 24, who demonstrate educational need—either by virtue of being high- school dropouts or by justifying their need for inclusion in the program. According to program regulations, at least 75 percent of the participants must come from very low-income families and have dropped out of high school. The program allows up to 25 percent of the youth to have a high- school diploma or have a slightly higher income; however, data developed by YouthBuild USA show that most organizations report that less than 25 percent of participants have high-school diplomas or General Equivalency Diplomas (GED) upon entering their programs. Also, according to data from YouthBuild USA, a number of the youths have been adjudicated (judicially determined to be delinquent), were on welfare upon entering the program, or lived in public housing (see fig. 2). Other studies we reviewed identified similar participant characteristics. Program regulations require participants to spend 50 percent of their program time receiving job training on construction sites, building affordable housing, and 50 percent receiving academic training. Recently, some of the Youthbuild grantees have added nonconstruction programs to their offerings, such as in the areas of computer repair and health care. Funding for the additional programs has come from AmeriCorps. In 1994, YouthBuild USA, located in Somerville, Massachusetts, became the primary technical assistance contractor for the Youthbuild program. YouthBuild USA is a national support center and intermediary for the program. As such, it provides training, develops materials and handbooks to help grantees replicate the program, conducts peer-to-peer seminars, and disseminates materials on best practices. YouthBuild USA also has established an affiliated network that grantees can choose to join. As of September 2006, 107 of 173 Youthbuild grantees with active grants were affiliates. Since 2002, YouthBuild USA has been using a Web-based system, WebSTA, to collect participant characteristic and performance data from its affiliates. Among the purposes of transfering the YouthBuild program to Labor was better alignment of existing federal workforce and youth training programs. Labor’s Employment and Training Administration offers programs that assist disadvantaged youths, similar to the programs that Youthbuild grantees offer. The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998 established a variety of programs to serve low-income youths who face barriers to employment. Labor allocates funds for the youth service programs to state and local areas based on a distribution formula. The grants are made to states, and the states in turn allocate funds to approximately 600 local workforce investment boards. The amount of funding available to states is determined by the distribution of unemployed individuals and disadvantaged youths by state. From 2000 through 2005, Labor administered the Youth Opportunity Grant program, which also was authorized by WIA. This grant program focused on improving education and employment opportunities for at-risk youths, ages 14 to 21, in high-poverty areas. Funding for the program was eliminated beginning in fiscal year 2004. In addition, Labor administers the Job Corps program, which began in 1964, and provides education, training and support services to economically challenged youths, ages 16 through 24, who face multiple barriers to employment. Private companies—chosen through competitive contracting processes—and other federal agencies operating under interagency agreements with Labor, operate the Job Corps centers (located throughout the United States and Puerto Rico) on behalf of Labor. Each year, HUD staff rated and ranked grant applications for serving economically distressed areas based on factors outlined in the enacting legislation and detailed in an annual NOFA. The Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 required HUD to establish selection criteria such as the qualifications or potential capabilities of applicants, the feasibility of the proposed Youthbuild program, the potential for developing a successful Youthbuild program, and the applicants’ commitment to obtain outside resources. Accordingly, HUD annually issued a NOFA that described the grant application process, outlined criteria for grant awards, and included scoring factors (see fig. 3). The major factors considered were the capacity and relevant experience of the organization (performance), need and extent of the problem, applicant’s soundness of approach, leveraging of nonhousing funds, and ability to show how it would achieve and measure results. Under these factors, grant applicants had to consider area poverty and high-school dropout rates, describe their management and training capabilities, and offer proof of access to property and the existence of partners to build low-income housing. HUD issued its last NOFA for the Youthbuild program on March 8, 2006, and announced the winning grantees in November 2006. Since fiscal year 2001, HUD has grouped applicants into three separate scoring categories—new, general (that are typically awarded to established Youthbuild organizations), and rural/underserved area grantees. Figure 4 shows the awards by category. The total numbers of grants as well as the grants by the individual categories have varied by year. The awards process also has been competitive. HUD historically funded less than one-third of all the applicants (see fig. 5). Since 1996, the number of applicants funded ranged from about 7 to 44 percent. Although HUD requires grantees to submit closeout reports, which are intended to help evaluate the programs, it has not verified, aggregated, or analyzed data from those reports. Further, the closeout reports do not include other data that could help determine participant characteristics upon entry or the types of jobs they received after completing the program. YouthBuild USA, the technical services provider for HUD, collects quarterly information, but it has not aggregated the information to obtain performance information over the span of a grant. HUD also has encountered significant delays in developing a database intended to gather additional performance information from grantees. Finally, citing resource constraints, HUD has conducted limited on-site oversight of grantees. As a result of a lack of verified and aggregated data or analysis and limited oversight, HUD largely was unable to tell how well the individual Youthbuild grantees performed. HUD requires grantees to submit performance reports, including closeout reports, but HUD has not developed or fully utilized information— particularly from the closeout reports—that could help it assess Youthbuild grantee programs and has lacked resources to conduct comprehensive oversight of grantees. Such information serves as the basis for management and oversight of programs. For instance, HUD states in the instructions for filling out the closeout reports that the reports will be used to monitor and evaluate progress of grantees and programs. Further, the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) shifted the focus of federal managers from the number of tasks completed or services provided to a more direct consideration of the outcomes or results of the program. GPRA provides a performance-based management framework for agencies to set goals; measure progress toward those goals; deploy strategies and resources to achieve them; and ultimately, use performance information to make the programmatic decisions necessary to improve performance. Accurate and complete performance data that document outcomes are needed to inform Congress and the public about the effectiveness of programs and help agencies conduct effective oversight. The combination of baseline information and intermediate outputs or outcomes can be used to show progress or contribution toward final outcomes, that is, the intended results of carrying out the program. For example, in Youthbuild, baseline information such as the number of participants entering a program with and without GEDs or high-school diplomas could be combined with intermediate outputs and outcomes such as graduation rates and jobs attained, which could then be linked to desired program outcomes such as the number of Youthbuild participants attaining economic self-sufficiency. However, HUD has not set up a system to verify, aggregate, or analyze the data from closeout reports—information and analyses that would form the basis for assessments of grantee performance. Citing resource constraints, HUD filed the reports in the individual grant files in headquarters and field offices and did not further review them. In addition, some basic baseline data are missing from the closeout reports, including the number of participants who enter the programs with a GED or high-school diploma. Such information is necessary to get an accurate count of the number of participants receiving a GED degree or diploma through Youthbuild programs and also provides a basis for comparison with which performance can be measured.