Hidalgo County residents lose $1M in rental assistance

Too little, too late. Just as the number of applications for rental assistance reached a fever pitch this summer, Hidalgo County was forced to turn over nearly $1 million that went unused by the federal government’s deadline. “We returned some significant money back to the Treasury,” Hidalgo County Community Service Agency (HCCSA) Director Jaime Longoria said Thursday before an advisory board meeting, in which the returned funds were discussed at length. “This particular installment is a little bit short of a million dollars.” In January of last year, the county received $26 million from the U.S. Department of the Treasury as part of its $25 billion Emergency Rental Assistance Program, or ERAP, that was launched on Jan. 5, 2021. ERAP was established by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 to provide assistance to households struggling to pay rent and utilities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The program provides up to 15 months of past and, or future rent costs for apartments, condominiums, houses and lots; as well as assisting with utilities such as water, electricity, gas, trash, sewage and internet service. In order to qualify for the program, applicants must be current residents of Hidalgo County, be part of the 80% Area Median Income, and have been economically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Applications trickled at first. When the program went into effect in April 2021, the county saw only one application for the entire month. That number rose to 103 in May, 214 in June, and 227 in July. By January of this year, the number had peaked at 708 applications, and has steadily increased over the following months. As of July 17, the county had 946 applications and anticipated surpassing the previous month’s number of 1,030. Longoria estimated that 60% of the applications were approved for the program.