Specifications include, but are not limited to: Dane County is soliciting applications from organizations for the construction or rehabilitation of public facilities projects located in the participating municipalities of the Dane County Urban County Consortium (see Appendix A). Funding is expected to be available under the HUD-funded Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. Eligible Applicants Units of local government and related agencies, such as public schools and libraries; public or private non-profit agencies or organizations including faithbased organizations. Public facilities that are owned by a non-profit must be open to the public during normal working hours. Eligible Public Facilities Public facilities in the CDBG program are broadly interpreted to include all facilities that are either publicly owned or that are traditionally provided by the government, or owned by a nonprofit and operated so as to be open to the general public. Public facilities include neighborhood facilities such as parks, playgrounds and recreational facilities, public schools, firehouses, and libraries. Facilities designed for use in providing shelter for persons having special needs are also considering public facilities. Such facilities include: shelters for the homeless; convalescent homes; hospitals; nursing homes; battered spouse shelters; halfway houses for runaway children, drug offenders or parolees; group homes for mentally retarded persons and temporary housing for disaster victims. Transitional housing facilities where residents generally reside in the units for up to two years are also considered public facilities. CDBG funds may be used to renovate closed buildings, such as closed school buildings, for use as an eligible public facility or to rehabilitate such buildings for housing. CDBG funds may be used for the rehabilitation, preservation, or restoration of historic properties, whether publicly or privately owned. Historic properties are those sites or structures that are listed in or eligible to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places, listed in a State or local inventory of historic places, or designated as a State or local landmark or historic district by appropriate law or ordinance. Historic preservation, however, is not authorized for buildings for the general conduct of government.