The HUD Exchange is the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s online platform for the organizations that carry out federal housing programs: state and local agencies, Public Housing Authorities, Continuums of Care, tribes, nonprofits, and their subrecipients. It’s where grantees find the program rules, toolkits, reporting systems, training, and expert help that go with HUD money.1HUD Exchange. About If HUD’s main site is built for the public, the Exchange is built for the people spending the grants.
Who It’s Built For
HUD distributes billions in formula and competitive grants each year, and the organizations spending those dollars need one place to find the rules, forms, and systems attached to the money. The primary audience is state and local governments running programs like the Community Development Block Grant or HOME Investment Partnerships, Public Housing Authorities managing assisted housing, Continuums of Care coordinating homelessness response, tribes and tribally designated housing entities, and HMIS lead agencies responsible for homelessness data.1HUD Exchange. About
Subrecipients and project sponsors who receive HUD funds indirectly through a pass-through can use most of the public-facing resources. Certain services, like in-depth technical assistance, must be requested by the direct grantee on their behalf.2HUD Exchange. Program Support The Exchange is not a portal for individuals looking for personal housing assistance.
Program Toolkits and Compliance Guidance
The backbone of the site is a set of program-specific landing pages. Each one bundles the regulations, notices, FAQs, sample forms, and step-by-step guides for a particular grant. A CDBG administrator, instead of hunting through the Federal Register, can pull up a toolkit that walks through program launch, implementation, and common activities like homeowner rehabilitation and small business loans.3HUD Exchange. CDBG-DR Toolkit These toolkits incorporate lessons learned from prior grantees, which is where the real value sits for anyone standing up a new program.
The HOME Investment Partnerships page covers the affordable housing construction and rehabilitation rules that participating jurisdictions have to track, including matching funds, income targeting, and property standards.4eCFR. 24 CFR Part 92 – Home Investment Partnerships Program The Emergency Solutions Grants page provides compliance checklists for the habitability standards that apply to shelters and to permanent housing funded through ESG’s rapid re-housing and homelessness prevention components.5HUD Exchange. ESG Minimum Habitability Standards for Emergency Shelters and Permanent Housing The Continuum of Care toolkit covers CoC governance, coordinated entry design, and grant administration, and includes virtual binders that walk new grantees through foundational topics.6HUD Exchange. CoC: Continuum of Care Program HOPWA grantees have a similar suite of self-paced training modules, income and rent calculation curricula, and financial management guides.7HUD Exchange. HOPWA: Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS
The Exchange also carries cross-cutting compliance material. The Uniform Administrative Requirements at 2 CFR Part 200 govern cost principles, financial management, and audits for every federal award, and the Exchange is where you’ll find the practical guidance for meeting them.8eCFR. 2 CFR Part 200 – Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards Section 3 guidance on employment and contracting opportunities for low- and very-low-income residents is hosted there too, including numerical benchmarks and documentation expectations when a project falls short.
Reporting and Financial Systems
The Exchange is more than a document library. It’s also the gateway to the systems HUD uses to track every dollar from allocation to closeout. Figuring out which system applies to your grant is one of the first things a new administrator has to sort out.
The Integrated Disbursement and Information System (IDIS) is the primary draw-down and reporting system for five CPD formula programs: CDBG, HOME, Housing Trust Fund, ESG, and HOPWA, plus the competitive HOPWA program. Grantees set up activities, request disbursements, and report accomplishments in IDIS, and HUD uses the same data to report to Congress and to monitor grantee performance.9HUD Exchange. Integrated Disbursement and Information System
Disaster recovery and special appropriation grants use a separate system, the Disaster Recovery Grant Reporting system (DRGR). It covers CDBG-DR, CDBG-MIT, the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, the Recovery Housing Program, PRO Housing, and other special allocations.10Federal Register. 60-Day Notice of Proposed Information Collection: Disaster Recovery Grant Reporting System (DRGR) If you manage both a regular CDBG entitlement grant and a CDBG-DR allocation, you’ll work in both systems.
The eCon Planning Suite combines the Consolidated Plan template inside IDIS Online with the CPD Maps data tools. Grantees submit their multi-year Consolidated Plans and Annual Action Plans through IDIS, and once they do, all later plans and CAPERs (Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Reports) go through the system too. The template pre-populates data tables with current housing and economic data.11HUD Exchange. eCon Planning Suite
Nearly every HUD-funded project requires an environmental review before funds can be committed. The HUD Environmental Review Online System, HEROS, is the platform for developing and documenting those reviews for Part 50 and Part 58 projects. For some programs, HEROS submission is mandatory. Rental Assistance Demonstration transaction managers must complete all Part 50 reviews in HEROS, and grantees under the Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Program and the Veterans Housing Rehabilitation and Modification Pilot must submit documentation through the system.12HUD Exchange. HEROS: HUD Environmental Review Online System
Homelessness programs have their own data infrastructure. The Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) is a locally operated technology system that collects client-level data on housing and services provided to people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Each Continuum of Care selects HMIS software that meets HUD’s data collection and reporting standards. The Exchange publishes the HMIS Data Standards, updated for FY 2026, along with an interactive tool that helps HMIS administrators identify which data elements they need to collect to satisfy HUD and federal partner requirements.13HUD Exchange. HMIS: Homeless Management Information System
Training and Learning Pathways
The Exchange hosts HUD’s training infrastructure: live webinars, in-person conferences, and self-paced online courses. Users register through their Exchange account and track completed coursework through a learner transcript stored on their dashboard.14HUD Exchange. Trainings
Content is organized into learning pathways, curated sequences of courses on topics like the CDBG-DR Consolidated Notice, environmental review under the WISER curriculum, or launching a ConnectHomeUSA program.14HUD Exchange. Trainings On-demand courses let staff work at their own pace, which matters when you’re onboarding someone mid-program year. Recorded webinars from earlier years stay available so new hires can catch up on prior guidance.
For many grantees, training isn’t optional. Grant terms often require staff to demonstrate familiarity with program rules, and the Exchange is where HUD expects that learning to happen. Most common audit findings trace back to misunderstanding a rule that was already covered in available training material.
Ask A Question and In-Depth Assistance
When the toolkits and training aren’t enough, the Exchange offers two tiers of human support. The first is Ask A Question, a help desk where grantees submit specific questions about policy interpretation, system troubleshooting, or program administration. Expert consultants funded by HUD review and respond.2HUD Exchange. Program Support
The second tier is In-Depth Program Assistance, for grantees facing problems that a single email answer won’t solve. It involves coordination among HUD headquarters, field office staff, and HUD’s consultants over weeks or months, and can include site visits and recurring communication to build organizational capacity. Eligibility is limited to direct recipients: state and local governments, Public Housing Authorities, tribes, HMIS organizations, and Continuums of Care. Subrecipients go through their pass-through grantee to request it. Individuals seeking personal housing assistance are not eligible.2HUD Exchange. Program Support
Data and Mapping Tools
The Exchange hosts publicly accessible datasets that serve grantees making investment decisions and researchers studying housing outcomes.
The Point-in-Time Count provides a snapshot of sheltered and unsheltered homelessness on a single night in January. Every Continuum of Care must conduct an annual sheltered count, with unsheltered counts required every other year during odd-numbered years. The Exchange publishes PIT reports at the national, state, and CoC levels, and ESG recipients must incorporate this data into their Consolidated Plans.15HUD Exchange. Point-in-Time Count and Housing Inventory Count
CPD Maps lets users visualize CDBG and HOME activity locations, funding levels, and project counts on census geography. The Data-Driven Planning Toolkit inside CPD Maps helps grantees compare housing and economic development data across neighborhoods, counties, and regions to identify where the most severe needs cluster.16HUD Exchange. Guide to the Data-Driven Planning Toolkit in CPD Maps
CDBG Performance Profiles publish each grantee’s allocation, expenditures, accomplishments, and beneficiary data for a given performance year, so grantees, stakeholders, and the public can assess how each local program is performing.17HUD Exchange. CDBG Performance Profiles The ACS Low- and Moderate-Income Summary Data is another key dataset: an activity qualifies for CDBG assistance as an area benefit if at least 51 percent of residents in the service area are low- and moderate-income, defined as income at or below 80 percent of the area median income.18HUD Exchange. ACS 5-Year Low- and Moderate-Income Summary Data These datasets are essential for documenting that a project meets a national objective.
Creating an Account
Most Exchange resources are publicly accessible without logging in, but certain features require a free account. Registering for training, tracking completed coursework, submitting Ask A Question inquiries, and requesting In-Depth Assistance all require authentication. You create an account by filling out a registration form on the Exchange and confirming through email.19HUD Exchange. Training Registration and Get Credit Instructions Grantees working with reporting systems like IDIS or DRGR need separate system-level access coordinated through their HUD field office. That’s a different process from the general Exchange account.