King County’s Eviction Prevention and Rent Assistance Program (EPRAP) continues to build momentum as new County staff action teams join EPRAP community-based providers in working one-on-one with local households and landlords to accelerate rent payments to support COVID-impacted individuals and families across King County. EPRAP also increased advance payments to large landlords and property owners last week while staff continue to work with them to complete the process to approve final payments for all of their tenants.
In the blog this week:
- Updated totals for rent assistance payments to date
- Advance payments help stabilize renters and landlords
This week’s updated total for rent assistance
$41.4 million to date/$5.4 million last week
This week’s updated total for rent assistance paid since January 2021 to September 24, 2021 is now $41.4 million, including $5.4 million over the past week. King County EPRAP continues to do weekly reconciliation of the funding to track all spending.
To date (Jan. 1, 2021-Sept. 24, 2021), a total of 4,355 households have received rent payments. Hub & Spoke agencies and community-based organization outreach teams are engaged with 12, 242 households throughout the county as their applications move forward.
Advance Payments Available for Large Landlord Program Participants
King County moved quickly to implement changes to our program immediately following new guidance issued by the U.S. Treasury. Two important changes significantly simplified the program: both landlords and tenants are now able to self-attest to payment arrears, COVID-related hardships, income, lease and ledger balances. The simplified process for both landlords and tenants is helping to smooth out snags occurring earlier in the program and speed up processing time.
Another significant change approved by our federal funder is the ability to offer landlords and large property owners an immediate advance payment on the amount owed to them for back rent. EPRAP will process an upfront payment of up to 50 percent of the total rental delinquency due, while the landlords, tenants and EPRAP staff complete the processing for all of the tenants in their rental portfolios. All 351 large landlord accounts have been offered advance funds. To date, King County EPRAP has advanced just over $12 million offering partial payment to 65 large landlord accounts. More are being processed each week. More details about the rental advancement program is available here.
Through EPRAP, King County is working to stabilize low-income individuals and families most at risk of homelessness. We will keep you updated via this blog!
