This month the US Treasury Department released an additional $21.6 billion under the American Rescue Plan for Emergency Rental Assistance. This funding follows on the heels of $25 billion in emergency rental assistance under the Consolidated Appropriations Act in December.
In response to industry concerns, the Biden administration has also released new guidelines to local agencies administering the programs to ease the rental assistance process. Most notably, for the first time, emergency rental assistance from the American Rescue Plan must be offered directly to renters when landlords don't participate in the program.
In addition, Treasury announced that it is cutting in half the time to determine whether a landlord elects to participate.
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The new guidance also allows funds to cover things such as moving expenses, security deposits, future rent, utilities, and the cost of a transitional stay in a hotel or motel when a family has been displaced.
It also requires landlords not to evict tenants for nonpayment of rent for 30 to 90 days longer than the period covered by the emergency rental assistance as a condition of receiving payment.
The slow rollout of rental assistance has been a source of frustration for both renters and landlords whose tenants are in arrears.
In the past, the multifamily industry has expressed concerns about the sluggish rollout of the federal government's rental assistance funds.
For instance, roughly a quarter of all respondents to The National Multifamily Housing Council's Quarterly Survey of Apartment Market Conditions in April indicated they hadn't received any rent relief funds included as part of the Federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program.
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Leslie Shaver
Les Shaver has been covering commercial and residential real estate for almost 20 years. His work has appeared in Multifamily Executive, Builder, units, Arlington Magazine in addition to GlobeSt.com and Real Estate Forum.
