Part III: Months on Hold for Rent Help

Illustration by Brittney Phan (State Affairs)

Dec 16, 2021
Key Points
  • Georgia ranks 12th-slowest among states for paying out $552 million in federal COVID-19 rental assistance that must be spent or given to other states.
  • Only $57 million— roughly 10% — had been distributed between April and mid-December even as state officials spent more than $11 million on internal costs.
  • The federal government could give millions of Georgia’s rent-assistance dollars to other states to spend on their residents if local officials don’t use it soon.
Like most states, Georgia’s rental-assistance program was slow to get started due to the need to staff up, build an online application portal and inform residents on how to navigate the complex paperwork required for payment approval. Still, DCA pushed out $9 million in rent payments in July – far less than several states with similar-sized funding amounts such as Virginia, which cleared nearly $59 million that month, and North Carolina, which paid out more than $67 million. The following ...