‘We’re still here.’ Centre County continues to provide rental, utility assistance to households
About 16 months after Centre County began its Emergency Rental Assistance Program, applications for rental and utility assistance continue to pour in. Without pause, the Centre County Office of Adult Services receives between 50-100 applications every week.
Through ERAP, renters can get up to 18 months of assistance as long as they continue to be eligible and funding is available. Eligibility includes households with a gross annual or monthly income that doesn’t exceed 80% of Centre County’s Area Median Income, that have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and that are at risk or homelessness or housing instability. It is for renters only.
Money in ERAP 1, the first half of the program, expires Sept. 30. As of May 30, there’s about $1.4 million of $11 million remaining, Faith Ryan, director of adult services, said.
“We’ve put out over $10 million in the community at this point, in 16 months, which is pretty incredible. Moving forward, we do believe that we’ll end ERAP 1 either in July or August,” Ryan said. But there will still be about $8 million to $9 million of ERAP 2 money. She expects the county to deplete all funds by early 2023.
If the county anticipates it will need to stop accepting applications, there will be a 30 or 60 day notice posted online. The site, www.centrecountypa.gov/rentrelief, has updated information, applications, links and other information. Until then, Ryan stressed that the office is still open, the staff is still processing applications and there is still assistance available to those who qualify.
“We’re still here. We’re still processing a lot. We’ve had some community members or landlords or even some community agencies feel like nothing was really happening or money hasn’t been going out. It does feel that way for a lot of people but we still put out about $900,000 a month between both programs,” Ryan said.
What is the need?
May had the largest number of households served in a month, at 267 households. When the program first came out, there was an eviction moratorium due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That has since been lifted, and people are able to go back to work and school. So what need in the community does the office continue to see?
“...We’re not really solving an emergency rental assistance problem anymore. We’re trying to resolve or address a critical affordable housing issue. Because I don’t think that we’ll truly know all of what’s going on until it’s over and maybe even like many, many years following.”
She said they see a lot of people who are employed, and people who were able to afford their rent and other expenses with their income pre-COVID, but their employment has since changed. She’s seen people who make $15/hour — which is the wage often encouraged for minimum wage — and those people are getting budget counseling and case management. And with everything increasing in costs, Ryan said, budgets are getting tighter.
“...There’s just no way to equal out that budget because we can’t take your electricity away. We can’t remove your cost of rent and housing from your budget, so that’s where we’re really getting stuck a lot of time,” Ryan said.
Once the ERAP funds are depleted, the office expects to see a “pretty significant need” due to the lack of affordable housing available. The office has an affordable housing specialist that does housing navigation work.
“We have people, of course, that come from all walks of life, from all levels of income, that are just desperately looking for housing they can afford. And sometimes we find ourselves helping and aiding them into housing that they can’t afford, because otherwise they’re homeless. It’s a very complex situation,” Ryan said.
