A Cook County rental assistance program unveiled last year for suburban residents opened a second round of applications on Thursday, this time with officials promising to help thousands more with triple the amount of funding from the federal government.
Eligible suburbanites who get selected can receive up to 12 months of missed rent and utility payments, and three months of future rent, according to the county’s website. Each household’s award, which goes directly to their landlords, will be capped at $15,000.
The application will be live until April 2 at www.cookcountyil.gov/recovery. There will be separate programs unveiled by Chicago and Illinois officials in the coming weeks, Xochitl Flores, Cook County bureau chief of economic development, said.
“We know that working families in the suburbs are suffering: Unpaid rent, evictions, foreclosures and other debts can have a lasting negative impact on a person’s life and future,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said during a Thursday news conference. “That’s why Cook County is taking action.”
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To qualify, renters must live in suburban Cook County and make no more than 80% of the area median income, defined at $72,800 for a household of four. They must show proof of coronavirus pandemic-related financial hardship such as loss of income, working fewer hours, getting furloughed, or quitting a job due to risk of contracting the virus or needing to provide child care. In addition, recipients can’t already receive aid through federally subsidized public housing, housing vouchers or current rental assistance. Those who got rental assistance in the past are eligible.
Because the number of applications is expected to exceed available funds, the county will randomly select recipients, Rich Monocchio, executive director of the Housing Authority of Cook County, said. His agency is in charge of releasing the money. Households with at least one person unemployed for 90 days before applying or with an annual household income no more than 50% of the area median income, or $45,500 for a family of four, get automatically prioritized.
Cook County’s Board of Commissioners authorized a total $72.8 million for the program, funded by a federal COVID-19 stimulus bill passed last December. About $65 million of that will go toward the payments to landlords, and the rest will go toward other social services such as free housing, legal aid or utility payments, for which applicants seeking rental assistance also can apply.
Thursday’s application launch was the second time Cook County offered COVID-19 rental assistance from federal aid. Last August, $20 million in CARES Act funding went toward rental aid for almost 1,000 residents, with a cap of $4,500 per household for one to three months of rent.
Monocchio said the new round will have a far greater reach of thousands more residents receiving the award. And this time, landlords and tenant rights organizations can also apply on behalf of renters.
The rental assistance program revival comes the same month Gov. J.B. Pritzker once again reissued his eviction moratorium, a freeze on certain evictions that began during the start of the coronavirus pandemic and has been extended each month. It now stands until April 3, but real estate groups have criticized the executive order as a source of devastating income loss for landlords.
Flores, the economic bureau chief, said the moratorium fell short for both landlords and renters, noting that for the latter group, their missed rent was not erased and accumulated as debt.
On Thursday, Preckwinkle also touted the American Rescue Plan Act COVID-19 relief bill, signed by President Joe Biden later in the day despite Republicans decrying the hefty cost, as a win for Cook County. In addition to sweeping aid initiatives in unemployment, rental assistance, child tax credits and more, it sends Cook County $998 million of local government assistance. The CARES Act last spring authorized $429 million for the county.
When asked about how the county would spend the money, Preckwinkle said there will be a similar flurry of assistance programs for small businesses, affordable housing and other COVID-19 recovery initiatives as seen last year from CARES Act funding. Cook County Health, which runs two safety-net hospitals in Chicago as well as CountyCare, the county’s Medicaid expansion program, also stands to benefit. Finally, cities, townships and villages with under 50,000 residents also will get some of that $998 million, as the act only provides direct support to larger municipalities.
“We scrambled last year to put together programs to be responsive to the needs of the communities that we serve,” Preckwinkle said. “We’ll continue to do what we what we’ve done in the past.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct that the news conference took place Thursday.
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