Guidebook on Military Base Reuse and Homeless Assistance: BRAC Base Closure Redevelopment Planning, Continuum of Care, HUD Reviews and Community Group Support

This report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. For more than four decades, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has closed or realigned military installations to reduce overhead, enhance readiness and modernization, and adjust to the realities of changing international relations. The resulting impact on surrounding communities is often dramatic. Many communities have successfully converted these former installations to civilian uses such as parks and other recreational facilities, business centers, market-rate housing, affordable housing, and transitional housing for homeless persons. Since the late 1980s, the base closure process and the role of local communities in planning for their transition to civilian use have evolved significantly.

The Redevelopment Act was designed to accommodate the impacted communities' multiple interests in base reuse and to meet the national priority to assist homeless individuals and families. The law exempted BRAC Commission installations from the provisions of Title V of the McKinney Act and substituted a community-based process wherein representatives of the homeless and other community groups participate in local reuse planning. The Redevelopment Act places responsibility for base reuse planning in the hands of a Local Redevelopment Authority (LRA), which represents all the local jurisdictions affected by a closing or realigning installation. The LRA is responsible for developing a reuse plan that appropriately balances the needs of the various communities for economic redevelopment, other development, and homeless assistance. HUD then reviews the plan to determine its compliance with the statute.

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