Orange County Continues to Assist Residents through New Emergency Rental Assistance Program

Orange County, Fla. – Since the closing of its Eviction Diversion Program at the end of February 2021, Orange County has launched its Emergency Rental Assistance Program, an income-based program aimed at continuing to help the County’s most vulnerable tenants who are past-due in rent as a result of financial hardships caused by COVID-19.

“It’s one of multiple rental assistance programs the County has offered to help aid residents during the pandemic,” said Orange County Mayor Jerry L. Demings. “We wanted to have a seamless transition from the Eviction Diversion Program, which provided more than $11.2 million in Federal CARES Act monies and helped 3,571 individuals and families stay in their homes, to the new coronavirus relief options.”

The Emergency Rental Assistance Program began taking applications to distribute $33.4 million of federal funds to assist eligible residents on March 1, 2021. The funding made available under this program will be used to make direct payments to landlords on behalf of qualifying tenants. Such payments shall:

• Cover a tenant’s documented past-due rent only for the time period beginning on April 1, 2020 to present;
• Not exceed $10,000 or 12 months of past-due rent; AND
• Shall not be duplicative of any additional rental assistance received by the tenant or the landlord for the tenant’s past-due rent. Any such duplicative assistance shall be deducted from the program payment amount.

For more information on tenant and landlord eligibility and required documents, and to apply for the program, visit www.ocfl.net/RentalAssistance.