Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Program (BRIC)

FAQs and News

BRIC 2024/2025 Notice of Funding Opportunity Update

The Connecticut Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security (DEMHS) is pleased to announce that the application period for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024/2025 Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program is now open. Funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), this program enables municipalities, state government agencies, federally recognized tribal nations, and regional planning entities to apply for eligible hazard mitigation projects through the DEMHS.

DEMHS will host a kick-off meeting to provide an overview of the FY24/25 BRIC NOFO and answer any questions on Thursday, April 9 from 2:00-3:00 p.m. All municipalities and partners are welcome to join by registering at the link below.


Critical Program Changes for FY 24/25:
FEMA has introduced major programmatic shifts this cycle, strictly prioritizing construction-ready physical infrastructure. General hazard mitigation planning and phased projects are now entirely ineligible. Capability- and Capacity-Building (C&CB) funding is strictly limited to infrastructure-specific project scoping and building code enforcement.

Attached, please find the updated DEMHS BRIC Fact Sheet, state submission deadline, and instructions for utilizing the FEMA GO portal. We encourage you to share this information with all relevant partners.

Federal Program Priorities:

Based on the FY 24/25 evaluation criteria, FEMA will highly prioritize and incentivize applications that demonstrate:

  • Infrastructure projects that are sufficiently developed to proceed to award and start construction without significant delay.
  • Projects that primarily benefit communities meeting the statutory definition of small and impoverished.
  • A new scoring incentive heavily rewards subapplicants that have never been selected in the BRIC National Competition before.
  • Communities that have locally adopted and enforced the 2021 or 2024 International Building Code (IBC) and International Residential Code (IRC).
  • Projects that deliver immediate, cost-effective risk reduction to critical infrastructure systems.

Program Guidance & Links:

 

Application Deadlines & Submission:

All subapplications must be submitted to the State via the FEMA GO system no later than July 1, 2026. Paper or emailed applications will not be accepted. Please note: All subapplicants must have a FEMA-approved hazard mitigation plan in place to be eligible for project funding.

Application Assistance:
DEMHS will host weekly office hours via Microsoft Teams for application assistance. Sessions will be held every Monday from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., beginning April 13 and concluding June 15. Click here to join.

Please contact the DEMHS Hazard Mitigation staff at demhs.hmgp@ct.gov with any project-specific questions or to discuss your application strategy under these new requirements