4/23/26

In accordance with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PROWRA), Section 214 of the Housing Act: 42 U.S. Code § 1436a and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Memorandum 25-03, subrecipients that are providing services and/or benefits to individuals and/or households that qualify for services based on their household income are required to utilize the SAVE database or an equivalent verification system approved by the federal government, to prevent federal public benefits from being provided to those are not lawfully present within the United States and are ineligible for receipt for federal public benefits.

The Systematic Alien Verification System for Entitlements (SAVE) database is available to grantees for the purposes of verifying legal status of program beneficiaries to receive federal public benefits.  Subrecipients will be required to verify eligibility of all participants that are receiving any type of direct benefit with federal funding. 

If your agency is awarded CDBG funding you will be responsible for obtaining the necessary documents to verify program beneficiaries' legal status in the SAVE database and certify that the information is accurate.  The Office of Community Development staff will work with you at that time and register your entity into the system. 

Programs whose beneficiaries are children under 18 will need to make an effort to verify legal status of participants, but it is understood that there may be minimal information available within the SAVE database regarding minors under the age of 18.

Programs that do not serve direct beneficiaries and qualify through an Area Benefit National Objective or that qualify under the emergency services exemption (i.e. food pantry programs, emergency shelter, etc.) are exempt from this verification requirement.