More than 28,000 Oregon households have received rental assistance relief due to hardship from pandemic
Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) announced today that as of Dec. 22, OHCS and local program administrators (LPAs) have paid $200.4 million in federal emergency rental assistance to 28,869 households, up from $187.5 million and 26,940 applicants last week, through the Oregon Emergency Rental Assistance Program (OERAP).
OERAP continues to be one of the nation’s top-performing programs and is ranked fifth in the nation, in the percentage of federal Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) funds paid out and obligated, as tracked by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Through its three-point plan, OHCS and its processing partner, Public Partnerships LLC (PPL), have made significant strides in the past several weeks to speed up application processing. Currently, 257 PPL staff are focusing on processing applications.
In the past week alone, PPL processed 1,899 applications, far exceeding its target of 1,000. This is in addition to the applications processed by LPAs working across the state to finish paying out ERA 1 funds.
To date, OHCS and LPAs have:
- Paid $200,453,906 to landlords and tenants to help 28,869 Oregon households.
- Received more than 52,122 completed applications to be reviewed for eligibility.
