The U.S. Treasury Department released new policy guidelines Aug. 25 aimed at speeding processing of Emergency Rental Assitance Program (ERAP) funds.
Treasury said in an update that $5.1 billion of the $25 billion in ERAP funds had been distributed through the end of July. While the program has had a somewhat slow start, Treasury said that 340,000 households received a disbursement in July, up 15 percent from those receiving funds in June.
Treasury noted that state and local agencies following its previous guidance showed the most improvement in disbursing funds, but that more needs to be done to expedite payments for the thousands of applications still in the pipeline.
“Even with these improvements, many grantees need to do more to urgently accelerate efforts to prevent harmful evictions of vulnerable families,” Treasury said in its announcement. “To help grantees continue to expedite assistance, today Treasury is announcing additional policies – including measures to reduce processing delays by providing even more explicit permission for grantees to rely on applicant’s self-attestations without further documentation.”
