Renewal Community and Empowerment Zone Applicants

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is pleased to offer support and assistance to localities for adding a human services and welfare-to-work perspective to their Empowerment Zone (EZ) or Renewal Community (RC) applications.

The EZ and RC programs are good opportunities for collaborative work involving economic development agencies and human services organizations, particularly agencies that administer the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. We encourage local leaders to use the EZ and RC planning process to reach out to human services agencies, work with them to create strategies for enhancing services for needy residents, and incorporate those strategies into their EZ strategic plans and RC course of action documents