The leadership of four states — New York, California, New Jersey, and Illinois – are calling on the federal government to prioritize and provide additional rental relief funding to their states.
The governors of the four states – New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker – sent a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, asking the department to reexamine its methodology for reallocating rent relief funds.
“From the start of my administration, I pledged to deliver relief to struggling tenants and landlords who were still recovering from the pandemic,” Hochul said, “Since then, we’ve issued more than $1.3 billion in rent relief out the door, made $100 million in rent supplements available, signed an increase in rental voucher amounts into law, invested $25 million for free legal services for tenants, and unveiled a number of bold, achievable proposals to address systemic housing needs. However, the harsh reality is that there are still too many New Yorkers in need of housing assistance.”
Specifically, the governors are asking Treasury to revisit the process as the current methodology for allocating the rent relief to states was based on state population totals, which do not consider the number of low-income renters in each state.
“The pandemic has created financial challenges for many across our state and nation, but no one should have to choose between paying for the roof over their head or putting food on the table. Additional federal funding will allow us to continue supporting hardworking New Jersey families during these challenging times,” Murphy said.
Further, the states stressed an immediate need to accelerate the redistribution of the estimated $18 billion in unused emergency funding.
Our states, however, are facing an immediate need now, and unused emergency funding that is eligible for reallocation should be deployed in an accelerated manner to keep families stabilized and housed as we continue to address the current surge of COVID-19. In doing so, U.S. Treasury can meet the immediate needs our states and other grantees are experiencing across the country while also ensuring grantees with less demand continue to have resources available to deploy,” the governors wrote in the letter to Yellen.