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Biden Administration to Redirect Rental-Assistance Funds to Areas With Greater Demand

29 November 2021

Andrew Ackerman with the Wall Street Journal details how the U.S. Treasury Department plans to shift its rental assistance allocation strategy.

The Treasury Department is redirecting rental-assistance money from some states and localities that haven’t used the bulk of their funds to others facing backlogs of aid requests, according to administration officials.

The officials said they couldn’t specify which jurisdictions would lose and gain funds. But they said those with large amounts of unused funds include rural states—like Montana and North Dakota—while local officials in several more populous states—like New York and Texas—are expected 威而鋼
11633711945?mod=article_inline” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>to exhaust their rental-assistance money over the coming week and months.

Officials said an initial reallocation, set to be unveiled in early December, could exceed $800 million and come at the request of states and localities that acknowledge they have more money than they can spend. Much of that money may be moved within states, rather than from one state to another—for instance, from a state-run program to a city-run program, or vice versa.

By the end of the year, the administration expects as much as $20 billion of the $47 billion in rental-assistance funding Congress authorized to be spent. An additional $5 billion to $10 billion will be committed to a specific tenant or landlord but not yet distributed.