-
SETRPC Community Service Divison Director Colleen Halliburton
Approaching a deadline of Nov. 30 to spend at least 30% of more than $6 million in Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) money, Jefferson County officials are confident they can reach that goal, but urge qualifying residents to apply for funding the county could lose if it doesn’t disperse.
“Up to this point, we have been able to expend approximately 18% of the funds for the direct assistance, which is $1.2 million, in the last four-and-a-half months for 346 households,” said Colleen Halliburton, community service division director at the Southeast Texas Regional Planning Commission (SETRPC). “So, we are pleased with the way we have been able to responsibly provide for those who are in the most need of this.”
Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick said the state, as of Nov. 9, had given more than $14 million to 3,075 households, and Halliburton believes another $12 million will be allocated as approximately 3,300 county applications were awaiting approval before the state portal closed Nov. 5.
Eligible Jefferson County residents and landlords may still apply for county-allocated ERAP funds online at erap.setrpc.org or by calling (409) 899-0824. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, qualifying applicants include anyone who qualifies for unemployment, experienced a significant reduction in income and/or experienced significant financial hardship due to COVID-19, and is behind on rent payments or at risk of missing a rent payment, and has a household income at or below 80% of the area median income (AMI), with priority given to households below 50% of the AMI.
“What we’re looking at right now is needing to hit the 30% mark of expenditures, which I feel very strongly we’re going to reach by Nov. 30, when we need to,” Halliburton said, explaining that approximately half of the 18% reached so far came in the last month. “It sped up drastically already, so we believe we are going to reach that mark.”
However, Halliburton revealed the SETRPC must submit a plan to the Treasury Department by Nov. 15 on how it intends to disperse funds more rapidly. There are a number of “procedural flexibilities” in place, according to Haliburton, allowing the county to explore routes it hasn’t used before in disaster-recovery efforts.
“If we do not implement those, it is possible (we) will lose some of the dollars,” she said, “Just over $1 million.”
Such practices include accepting self-attestations of rental amounts, without a signed lease and to provide disbursements directly to tenants.
“These are not things, in our best practices, we’ve found we can do when you’re trying to make sure you’re being good stewards of the public’s dollars, of the people’s money,” she said. “We would have to have some sort of fraud prevention up front or some sort of fraud capture afterwards.”
Halliburton believes the county is working well to prevent fraud up front, but told The Examiner Treasury guidelines say she can’t release loan application information to the public.
Jefferson County is not paying tenants directly, Halliburton confirmed, although she said SETRC will work directly with tenants in need of rental assistance, adding, “If a landlord is willing to participate, we are relocating (tenants), paying for their move, paying for their new place to live, helping them find a new rental property and setting up those first three months’ rents, deposits, things of that nature.”