Nov. 24, 2021
Contact: Delia Hernández
503-986-2051
HCS.mediarequests@hcs.oregon.gov
Oregon pays close to $150 million in federal emergency rental assistance
Over 22,000 households have received funds to pay rent
SALEM, Ore. — 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 $149.8 million in federal emergency rental assistance to 22,128 applicants, up from $141.3 million and 20,962 applicants last week. The agency is ranked 8th in the nation in the percentage of funds paid and obligated.
Application pause
OHCS announced 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, 150 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 770 applications, exceeding their 500-application target.
To date, OHCS and LPAs have:
- Paid $149,885,088 to landlords and tenants – about $20 million in the past two weeks alone - to help 22,128 Oregon households.
- Processed and obligated an additional $28.3 million in funds for 3,417 households.
- Received more than $378.3 million in funding requests via applications.
- Received more than 50,945 completed applications.
Visit the OERAP dashboard for more data.
Applications in review process
About 19,824 applications are in the review process. Our 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 an estimate of the geographic areas with the highest numbers of applications outside the 60- and 90-day windows of protection as of Nov. 24. 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. Their average processing time is 75 days. On average, PPL processed applications within an estimated 57 days from when they received the application. Improvements are underway to track PPL processing times that take into account they are taking old applications, rather than taking applications as they come in like LPAs.
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