Justification for Emergency Clearance

Justification for emergency clearance:

The CDFI Fund is requesting emergency clearance for the attached Persistent Poverty Counties questionnaire to be sent to FY 2012 applicants to the CDFI Program. The attached questionnaire will be used by CDFI Program applicants to declare their commitment to lend/invest in Persistent Poverty Counties using the CDFI Program’s FY2012 Appropriations. The information collected will be used by the CDFI Fund to determine the final awardee pool and size of awards to comply with the 10 percent Persistent Poverty Congressional mandate requirement. The requested information is required by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012, which states:  “Provided further, That of the funds awarded under this heading, not less than 10 percent shall be used for projects that serve populations living in persistent poverty counties (where such term is defined as any county that has had 20 percent or more of its population living in poverty over the past 30 years, as measured by the 1990, 2000, and 2010 decennial censuses).”