Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) and Local Program Administrators (LPAs) still continue to process applications for the Oregon Emergency Rental Assistance Program (OERAP).

As of Dec. 8, OHCS and LPAs have paid $170.2 million in federal emergency rental assistance to 24,705 applicants, up from $157.5 million and 23,155 applicants from the previous week. OERAP is ranked 6th in the nation nation for housing assistance, in the percentage of ERA funds paid out and obligated, as tracked by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

OHCS is partnered with Public Partnerships LLC (PPL) on the project. Currently, 150 PPL staff are processing applications with a focus on applications outside the 60-/90-day safe harbor period. In the past week, PPL processed close to 850 applications, exceeding their 500-application target. This is in addition to the applications paid out by Community Action Agencies working across the state to finish paying out ERA 1 funds. To date, OHCS and LPAs have:

• Paid $170,274,579 to landlords and tenants to help 24,705 Oregon households
• Processed and obligated an additional $21.1 million in funds for 2,465 households
• Received more than 58,849 completed applications

About 22,470 applications are in the review process. 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.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

As proxy, OHCS is tracking when a tenant completes an OERAP application and the number of applicants who have not been paid outside of the 60-day window (90 days in Multnomah County and unincorporated areas of Washington County). Applications outside the 60-/90-day window are being moved from the LPA in their county to PPL.

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.


--Bruce Armstrong

Post Date: 2021-12-13 14:46:11

Last Update: 2021-12-13 21:11:15