Maryland county reopens pandemic rent assistance program

Maryland’s Montgomery County reopened its pandemic lease help program on Wednesday for a fourth part after an increase in group ranges of COVID-19.

“I’m happy to announce the reopening of the rental reduction program. We now have extra funds to distribute, and we all know that the necessity for this help has not gone away,” Montgomery County Government Marc Elrich mentioned in an announcement saying the brand new part.

The county’s COVID-19 Lease Reduction Program, first launched in Might 2020, allocates lease help to those that have fallen behind on lease funds resulting from “monetary hardship” ensuing from the pandemic.

This system supplies as a lot as $12,000 for as much as a yr and a half for these deemed eligible for help.

“For households beneath 30% of the Space Median Revenue (AMI), extra monetary assist could also be accessible past the $12,000, together with as much as $2,000 for utility help,” this system specifies.

The brand new part of this system is open to new submissions from renters in Montgomery County in addition to continued submissions from those that had been unable to finish a submitted software by the earlier deadline of June 30.

For a family to be eligible, along with having skilled monetary hardship as a result of pandemic, its members will need to have incomes at or beneath 50% of AMI, have lived within the county since no less than August 2021, have a casual or formal settlement to pay lease and be behind on rental funds by no less than two months as of June 30.

“The influence of this pandemic might be with us for fairly a while, so I urge eligible residents who’re in must not delay and apply at present,” Elrich mentioned in his assertion.

Montgomery County COVID-19 Surveillance not too long ago reported a excessive group degree within the space after seeing an increase from 6.1 hospitalizations per 100,000 residents on July 5 to 13.2 on July 28.

On the time of the launch of the fourth part, the COVID-19 Lease Reduction Program had distributed $79.1 million.

The fourth part is utilizing funding offered by U.S. Treasury Emergency Rental Help to Montgomery County and the state of Maryland.