CHARLOTTE, N.C. — North Carolina’s Office of Recovery and Resilience is making changes to speed up the process of assisting families through the HOPE Program.
Forty-two thousand people applied for assistance with rent or utilities, and every day counts for families trying to avoid eviction or keep the lights on. There’s so much need the program received twice as many applications as expected. Program officials admit they were not prepared for the rush and have had to adjust in order to process applications much faster.
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Haley Pfeiffer Haynes serves as chief of external affairs for NCORR. She told Eyewitness News they’ve hired 130 people and are working seven days a week to process applications and respond to applicants at a faster pace. The agency must disperse or commit all the money by Dec. 31 or it will go back to the federal government. They’re also working with 20 nonprofit organizations and sharing information with utility companies to save time on matching application and account information.
The program has $117 million and so far, they’ve assisted 4,300 people. Another 4,000 are in the process of getting grants. NCORR is also automating parts of the process to speed up application approval.
“We’re starting to see some real improvement in the numbers of how many folks are getting assisted, but we are not stopping. We are working hard to get all this money out because people are in desperate need and we know that, and so that’s why we are working constantly on this,” said Pfeiffer Haynes.
NCORR is also working on another big policy change. Of the landlords they’ve worked with, roughly 2,700 have accepted payment, but about 8% have turned down the money. The previous policy required landlords to agree not to evict tenants for nonpayment through the end of their lease. They are changing the policy to address the concerns of landlords who were uncomfortable with that requirement and will go back to them to see if they will accept payment under new terms.
Pfeiffer Haynes says they’re currently training staff on the new policy and plan to announce the changes soon.
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If you are waiting on a response, she says to keep an eye on your email and keep your latest utility bills handy, as that will help them process your grant faster.
If you received a letter that says you are eligible, Pfeiffer Haynes says you will receive assistance. The letter is also your protection against eviction. She says if you show your letter to your landlord and are still threatened with eviction, you should contact your case worker.
If you are still waiting to be assigned a case worker, call 211 and they can give you contact information for a case worker. While you wait for a formal response, you should also make sure to have your landlord’s email address; that will help the process move along more smoothly when they’re ready to disperse grant funding.