New Hampshire's emergency rental assistance program is no longer accepting new applications. State officials announced the move last week, citing a lack of additional federal funding for the program.
The impact on residents — particularly those who have had their rents raised while the program has been in place, or those who don’t have any housing and have been staying in hotels — could be significant, advocates say. But as energy costs become a greater burden for Granite Staters, the end of the program would also mean the loss of one source of utility assistance.
Angela Zhang, a program director at LISTEN Community Services, says that money made a difference for a lot of families, especially with their electric bills.
“I think this is going to be quite the adjustment,” she said.
About $20 million, or about 8.5% of New Hampshire's total funding, went toward helping with utility bills. That help was available for a broader range of people, and uses, than traditional utility assistance.
This program’s funds could be used to pay down arrears, which the other electric and fuel assistance programs in New Hampshire don’t usually do, according to Ray Burke, a staff attorney for the Utilities Justice Project at New Hampshire Legal Assistance.
The income limit for the program — 80% of median area family income — was also higher than the limits for the traditional fuel and electric assistance programs, which are 60% of state median income, Burke said.
Donnalee Lozeau, CEO of Southern New Hampshire Services, said the emergency rental assistance program was particularly helpful for residents who had significant utility arrearages. It allowed people to pay them down and start saving toward future rent and utilities.
“A fair amount of people have used this opportunity to try to get themselves back with their feet solidly on the ground,” she said.
State officials will continue processing applications for the emergency rental assistance program received as of Oct. 20.
Community action agencies will continue to help connect residents with other aid programs, like fuel and electric assistance, or rapid re-housing money, she said.
State leaders recently opened up new programs for emergency energy assistance that serve Granite Staters making up to 75% of statewide median income.
Gov. Chris Sununu has asked the state’s congressional delegation to work with the U.S. Treasury to reconsider the decision to not make additional funding for the program available after December 2022.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said the delegation would try but also cast blame on Sununu’s administration, saying the state’s failure to spend an earlier round of funding was likely why the Treasury declined to fulfill the request for more funding.
According to an Oct. 20 letter from Sununu, the state was relying on a $67 million reallocation of a second round of rental assistance funding to keep the program going. New Hampshire didn’t receive that money.
The Treasury Department’s guidance for that reallocation says federal officials may prioritize places that are likely to expend the remaining allocations from the first pot of rental assistance, ERA1, which was created in December 2020, and the second round, ERA2, which was created in March 2021.
In October 2021, the state started using ERA2 instead of ERA1, though it still had first round funds left to spend. The ERA2 funds can be spent until 2025, while the ERA1 funds must be expended by late 2022.
The eligibility requirements for the programs are different, and some households are only eligible for assistance under ERA2, according to a February letter from New Hampshire’s congressional delegation.
Emergency rental assistance funds from one state can be reallocated to other jurisdictions if they’re not spent. Eighteen million dollars of New Hampshire’s ERA1 funds were taken back by the federal government and reallocated involuntarily in March 2022.
“The State deliberately chose to spend down funds with a much longer shelf life, which resulted in the State’s spend rate for ERA1 funds falling below the required threshold to avoid recoupment,” Sen. Shaheen said in her letter to Gov. Sununu.
In a written statement, a Treasury spokesperson said the process to disperse emergency rental assistance funding was ongoing, and it is continuing to review requests for the funds, including from New Hampshire. The spokesperson also said possible future funds are expected to be smaller than amounts requested.
The Governor’s Office for Emergency Relief and Recovery did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
