Explanation
BACKGROUND: This legislation authorizes the Director of Development to enter into a subaward agreement with The Healing Empowering Loving Preparing (HELP) Center in an amount up to $20,000.00 of federal Emergency Rental Assistance 2 funds to provide housing stability services for qualified residents and providing for expenses starting January 1, 2021. The H.E.L.P. Center shall be a “subrecipient” as defined under federal guidelines.
Ordinance 2275-2021 authorized the City of Columbus to accept and appropriate $22,355,652.60 of federal Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA 2) program funds, as passed by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. Of this amount, up to $20,000.00 will be used for a subaward agreement with The H.E.L.P. Center to provide housing stability services (as defined by U.S. Treasury) to qualifying residents of the local community to ensure housing stability.
In this subaward agreement, at least 60% of the funding will support households with an AMI at 50% or below and/or have a member of the household who has been unemployed for 90 days; up to 40% of the funding can be used for households with an AMI at 80% or below; and 10% of the funding will be utilized for Administrative costs.
The H.E.L.P. Center will be piloting an expansion of its current work with restored citizens in need of housing stability. This work will be implemented with and through the Central Ohio Restored Citizens Collaborative (CORCC). The Central Ohio Restored Citizens' Collaborative is a coalition dedicated to supporting those touched by the justice system. Its network of community resource providers, justice-involved citizens, and supportive stakeholders help to ease the transition from conviction to restoration. In addition, two ERA partners will be providing rental and utility assistance to eligible tenants referred by The H.E.L.P. Center (Broad St. Presbyterian Church and Physicians CareConnection). This one year pilot will provide enhanced services t...
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