Grants / Department of Justice / National Institute of Justice

O-NIJ-2021-55001: Research and Evaluation on the Police Response to Homelessness, Fiscal Year 2021

Closed Closed April 19, 2021 Opportunity O-NIJ-2021-55001 ☆ Save

This grant is closed. A newer notice from the same program is open now: NIJ FY 2026 Research and Evaluation on Violent Crime: Gangs and Organized Criminal Groups (Domestic and Transnational) (O-NIJ-2026-172806). Status: Closes November 30, 2026 (23 days left). It is in our archive of National Institute of Justice notices from 2021.

• Award ceiling$1.5 million
• Total funding$1.5 million
• Expected awards1
• Cost sharingNot required
• Funding typeGrant

Key dates

Who can apply

This opportunity was open to nonprofits, colleges and universities, state and local governments, tribes, small businesses and businesses.

For purposes of this solicitation, the term “State” means any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virginia Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Foreign governments, foreign organizations, and foreign colleges and universities are not eligible to apply. Federal agencies are eligible to apply. (Any award made to a federal agency will be made as an inter-agency reimbursable agreement.) To advance Executive Order 13929 Safe Policing for Safe Communities, the Attorney General determined that all state, local, and university or college law enforcement agencies must be certified by an approved independent credentialing body or have started the certification process to be eligible for FY 2021 DOJ discretionary grant funding. To become certified, the law enforcement agency must meet two mandatory conditions: (1) the agency’s use of force policies adhere to all applicable federal, state, and local laws; and (2) the agency’s use of force policies prohibit chokeholds except in situations where use of deadly force is allowed by law. The certification requirement also applies to law enforcement agencies receiving DOJ discretionary grant funding through a subaward. For detailed information on this new certification requirement, please visit https://cops.usdoj.gov/SafePolicingEO to access the Standards for Certification on Safe Policing for Safe Communities, Implementation Fact Sheet, and List of Designated Independent Credentialing Bodies. All recipients and subrecipients (including any for-profit organization) must forgo any profit or management fee.

More grants for nonprofits, colleges and universities, state and local governments, tribes, small businesses, businesses.

Is this a realistic fit?

• Past National Institute of Justice Research, Evaluation, and Development Project Grants awards averaged $596,032; this notice allows up to $1.5 million per award.
• Most of the program's money (45% over five years) went to colleges and universities.
• No cost sharing or match is required.

What the grant funds

With this solicitation, NIJ seeks proposals for rigorous research and evaluation projects to conduct exploratory research and secondary/open data analysis to assess the range of practices, strategies, and tactics used by police to respond to homelessness. Applicants must propose case studies, among other research activities, to establish the complexity and breadth of public and private agencies, organizations, and institutions connected to the police response to homelessness. This solicitation supports the U.S. Department of Justice's strategic goals associated with combat violent crime, promote safe communities, uphold the rights of victims of crime, and uphold the rule of law and integrity in the proper administration of justice. Applicants proposing research involving partnerships with criminal justice or other agencies should include a strong letter of support, signed by an appropriate decision-making authority from each proposed partnering agency. A letter of support should include the partnering agency's acknowledgement that de-identified data derived from, provided to, or obtained through this project will be archived by the grant recipient with the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) at the conclusion of the award. Applicants and their potential partners are encouraged to review the NACJD's policies and protections at (NACJD). If selected for award, grantees will be expected to have a formal agreement in place with partnering agencies by January 1, 2022. The formal agreement must include a provision to meet the data archiving requirements of the award. In the case of partnerships that will involve the use of federal award funds by multiple partnering agencies to carry out the proposed project, only one entity/partnering agency may be the applicant (as is the case with any application submitted in response to this solicitation); any others must be proposed as subrecipients.

Category: Law, Justice and Legal Services.

Applying now

This notice no longer takes applications. Apply under the newer notice, O-NIJ-2026-172806, which is open now.

The notice on Grants.gov keeps its full text and attachments, which is useful for planning a resubmission.