Hampton Roads Region and Several Localities Receive Homeland Security Grant Funding

Projects from several Hampton Roads localities as well as a few regional projects are recipients of part of approximately $6.5 million in federal funds awarded to the Commonwealth of Virginia by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Some 100 projects to enhance emergency preparedness and security throughout the Commonwealth received funds, administered by the Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM). VDEM selected projects that support the ability of local governments to sustain a wide array of emergency preparedness and security operations, equipment replacement, training, planning and exercise programs.

“Thanks to our partners at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Virginia has received funds that will make our citizens safer and better-prepared for emergencies,” said State Coordinator Dr. Jeff Stern.

“Federal grants for emergency management and homeland security to Virginia have been cut nearly 70 percent since 2008, requiring us to be more strategic in how money is allocated in order to sustain the basic response capability that has been built up since 9/11,” said Stern. “We asked our public safety partners from around the state to determine the priorities for this year’s grant process, and more than 110 local leaders from emergency management, law enforcement, fire and rescue, and EMS participated as peer-reviewers to grade and rank projects.”

Old Dominion University assisted with scoring the graded proposals, based on a benefit-cost ratio, as requested by the public safety stakeholders. VDEM received 155 grant requests for approximately $17 million. Only $5.5 million was available to allocate to localities from this year’s State Homeland Security Program (SHSP).

Statewide, 58 projects valued at $2.7 million have received funding from the SHSP based on competitive assessment by peer reviewers. Here is a table of Hampton Roads projects receiving funding from the competitive process.

As requested by the public safety stakeholders, an additional $2.8 million has been allocated in non-competitive grants from both the UASI and SHSP to fund 30 projects sustaining 16 hazardous materials teams, six technical rescue teams, three incident management teams, four Virginia radio communications caches and the Virginia Fusion Center. The following table depicts Hampton Roads projects that received funding as part of this allocation.