Emergency Rental Assistance

About the Program

Category: Community and Economic Development (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

Hennepin County allocated $16 million of CARES Act Coronavirus Relief Fund to create an Emergency Rental Assistance program. The County aimed to make this additional assistance available as quickly as possible, to maintain flexibility, to leverage partnerships, and to build off what we already knew. We also hoped our 2020 efforts could improve our ongoing emergency assistance, and could help bridge the divide and build trust between the County and groups traditionally reticent to seek assistance. From June-December 2020, the County provided $16 million of emergency rental assistance to 6,000 low-income households, preventing their homelessness during a pandemic and economic recession. Two-thirds of these households had incomes below 30% of the area median income, putting them at highest risk of homelessness without our assistance. Our emergency efforts under COVID-19 not only protected these 6,000 households, but improved our ongoing emergency assistance system.