Nearly 21,000 households have received funds to pay rent
Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) and Local Program Administrators (LPAs) continue to make strong progress on processing applications for the Oregon Emergency Rental Assistance Program (OERAP).
As of today, OHCS and LPAs have paid $141.3 million in federal emergency rental assistance to 20,962 applicants, up from $130.6 million and 19,613 applicants last week. The agency is ranked 7th in the nation in the percentage of funds paid and obligated.
OHCS announced last week a pause in accepting new applications for the OERAP program for six weeks, starting on Dec. 1, at 11:59 p.m. Anyone who has fallen behind on rent or may get behind on December rent is encouraged to apply for emergency rental assistance right away, but before Dec. 1 at 11:59 p.m. at oregonrentalassistance.org.
Progress and Updated Numbers
Through its three-point plan, OHCS and its processing partner, Public Partnerships LLC (PPL), have made significant strides to drive rapid application processing in the past several weeks. Currently, 105 PPL staff are processing applications on behalf of counties with applications outside the 60-/90-day safe harbor period. In the past week, PPL processed close to 700 applications, exceeding their 500-application target. PPL is currently onboarding and training an additional 45 staff who will begin processing next week.
To date, OHCS and LPAs have:
- Paid $141,384,835 to landlords and tenants to help – over $20 million in the past two weeks alone – 20,962 Oregon households
- Processed and obligated an additional $29.6 million in funds for 3,544 households.
- Received more than $373.3 million in funding requests via applications.
- Received more than 49,939 completed applications.
Applications in Review Process
About 20,219 applications are in the review process. The agency is tracking when a tenant completes an OERAP application and the number of applicants that have not been paid outside of the 60-day window (90 days in Multnomah County and unincorporated areas of Washington County). The 60-/90-day window of protection begins when a tenant shows proof they applied for the program. However, this data is not currently available. Applications outside the 60-/90-day window are being moved from the LPA in their county to PPL.
This graph below shows the geographic areas with the highest numbers of applications outside the 60- and 90-day windows of protection as of Nov. 17. This graph does not include applications outside the 60-/90-day window from counties that received ERA funding directly from the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Below is a graphic that shows average application processing times for each county for the OERAP program as of this week
Multnomah County is not included in this as a comparison because they have a 90-day window.
