National Objectives

To be eligible under the current CDBG Program Description, projects must meet one of three national objectives:

Benefit to low and moderate income (LMI) persons or communities
- LMI area benefit
- LMI benefit to a limited clientele
- LMI job creation/retention
- LMI housing
Elimination of slums or blighting influences
Urgent need

Please refer to the CDBG Application Guidelines on the Program Documents page and the Implementation Manual for complete information on these national objectives, including project criteria.

Program LMI Benefit Requirement

To receive each year’s allocation of CDBG funding from HUD, the State must certify that the SC CDBG Program will primarily benefit low and moderate income persons. Compliance must be demonstrated on the back end, once all funds from an annual allocation have been expended, all related projects completed, and national objectives documented for all projects. To ensure this, the State CDBG Program is designed to give maximum priority to projects that will benefit LMI Persons. Projects that meet the slum/blight and urgent need national objectives, for example, do not contribute toward meeting the overall LMI benefit requirement and funding for these projects each year is more limited. Likewise, federal statutes limit State CDBG funding for activities eligible under the CDBG public services category to 15% of the annual HUD allocation, regardless of project national objective. Information regarding national objectives and benefits achieved by funded projects can be found in each year’s Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report or CAPER. The most recent CAPER can be found in Program Documents.