HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Officials are hoping to announce by next week when the Homeowner Assistance Fund program can resume accepting requests for continued assistance.
“When we do reopen up, it will be, again, for a short period. Continuance requests will be accepted from homeowners already in the program as long as they didn’t max their relief amount, which was that $26,550,” HAF program director Audrey Topasna said during Thursday’s meeting of the Interagency Council for Coordinating Homelessness Programs and Office of Homelessness Assistance and Poverty Prevention.
Launched near the start of last year, HAF is a pandemic-era federal assistance program intended to help homeowners pay mortgage and housing obligations, utilities, property taxes and help prevent displacement and the loss of services.
Topasna said Thursday that HAF is in its final funding phase with new applications having been closed in March. To date, the program has disbursed $11.3 million in housing related payments. More than 1,770 applications were submitted to the program, of which 1,738 homeowners were approved and received financial assistance, according to Topasna.
She added that all requests for continued assistance received up to July 31 has been processed and paid out. The program had to pause accepting continuance requests as staff needed to make payments and then determine how much funding was still available, Topasna said. Staff are still auditing payments, she added.
“We’re probably looking at maybe a two, three week period when we do announce those (reopening) dates. We really hope to make that announcement or send out a press release as early as next week,” Topasna said Thursday.
She didn’t have the final number available but added that the program is looking at a little over $500,000 still available at this time. They are expecting “for sure” that HAF direct service funds will end by the end of the year, or sooner, maybe in November, Topasna said.
Another pandemic-era federal assistance program is the Emergency Rental Assistance program.
There have been two ERA programs established and funded under two federal laws. The 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act authorized the ERA 1 program. The American Rescue Plan Act authorized ERA 2. Guam has so far expended $33.6 million across both programs.
Providing her own updates Thursday, Guam ERA program manager Viki Lindlau said the current cycle, Cycle 6, has been a little more slow going.
To date, ERA 2 has received more than 3,700 applications, of which 910 are for Cycle 6.
“As you remember, our Cycle 6 started on May 1. So we’re a little bit behind the power curve with regard to numbers, but it’s a good indicator that things are on the up and up. People are, you know, back to work, probably getting stabilized. And of course, with (Typhoon) Mawar it interrupted their lives and everything shifted over to disaster relief,” Lindlau said Thursday.
“We’re hoping to expect an increase,” she added.
The Emergency Rental Assistance office at the ITC Building in Tamuning is shown Wednesday, May 11, 2022.
