The Distressed Cities Technical Assistance (DCTA) program is designed to improve fiscal health and build administrative capacity of relatively small units of general local government (UGLGs or local governments) that are economically distressed. The economic distress may be attributable to multiple factors including but not limited to changing market dynamics, emigration, and/or natural disasters.
DCTA considers good fiscal health, strong financial performance, and effective financial management practices to be the foundation for local governments to successfully implement projects and goals. These are viewed as the central components of the technical assistance (TA) offered through this program. Other possible areas of TA under this program include economic stabilization and recovery, federal development programs, affordable housing financing, community engagement practices, cross-sector partnerships, and plan implementation.
Approved TA engagements begin with an assessment of your local government’s fiscal health and financial management practices. Note, any information gathered through this assessment is not used by HUD or any other agency for program monitoring or compliance; it is only used to guide your UGLG’s technical assistance.
This program is designed to help small UGLGs:
This program allows HUD to develop a set of best practices and recommendations to share with other communities facing similar challenges.
The first phase of DCTA is a capacity needs assessment (CNA). To learn more about the CNA process, as well as the financial management component of the CNA, view the resources below.
If you have any questions about the DCTA program please contact the DCTA Team at distressedcities@hud.gov.
Learn more about the DCTA program, including program basics, terminology, eligibility and selection criteria, and TA.
Access resources, webinars, reports, and other information relevant to small UGLGs, including COVID-19 resources.
Distressed Community
Meets at least one of these criteria:
Population Size
Community's population is less than 40,000 people, according to the most recent ACS 5-Year Estimates.
Communities with populations between 8,000 and 40,000 will be prioritized for TA under this program. The DCTA Team is working on alternative resources to assist communities with populations under 8,000.
Visit https://data.census.gov to locate the total population for your community.
If your community meets these criteria and may benefit from Distressed Cities TA, you may request TA via an email to distressedcities@hud.gov.
It is recommended that your city manager, mayor, or the equivalent submit the request for TA. This person will be encouraged to participate in preliminary phone calls with the DCTA Team. The request must be submitted by an employee of the UGLG.
The request should be submitted as a PDF document which includes the following details:
Contact distressedcities@hud.gov if you have questions about the requested information.
Only UGLGs are eligible to receive this TA. Please do not submit a request to the Distressed Cities email if you are not a representative of a UGLG.
Review the FAQs to get answers to common questions.
If you have questions about this TA after reviewing the FAQs, you can email the DCTA Team.