Treasury to Send $1.1 Billion in Pandemic Rental Assistance

Some cities and states have lost their pandemic rental assistance for failing to distribute it. The money is being redistributed to other locations, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.

In the Pacific Northwest, funds have been allocated as follows from Emergency Rental Assistance Round 1: 

• $1.16 Million to Oregon
• $389,589 to the City of Tacoma
• $234,629 to the City of Spokane
• $59,718 to the City of Portland
• $42,569 to Multnomah County
• $46,686 to Lane County

Read the full list here.

According to the treasury website:

There will be multiple rounds of ERA 1 reallocation. In this first round of reallocation, Treasury will disburse over $1.1 billion in ERA 1 funding, more than three-quarters of which are significant, one-time transfers proposed voluntarily between ERA 1 grantees in the same state. Any amounts recaptured from a grantee were first prioritized to grantees in the same state that were deemed eligible to receive reallocated funds. Funds were then distributed nationally, prioritizing grantees that had substantially completed their spending of ERA 1, with grantees that made more rapid progress on the expenditure of their ERA 2 funding weighted more heavily. The rapid utilization of ERA funds across the country meant that only a limited amount of funding would be reallocated.

Treasury has now begun informing grantees about the process for requesting funding in the second round of ERA 1 reallocations.  The deadline for submitting a request for the second round of reallocated funds is January 21, 2022.  By statute, the process for reallocating ERA 2 funds will not begin until March 31, 2022, and Treasury will publish separate guidance for this reallocation.

Treasury is encouraging states and localities to use other sources of funds, including the $350 billion Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, to provide additional support to renters – as several communities are already doing. Treasury is also encouraging states and localities to continue to implement other policies and procedures to prevent evictions.