From the Philadelphia Unemployment Project (http://www.philaup.org/):
As part of the recently passed American Rescue Plan, Congress included $10 billion to help struggling homeowners through the Homeowner Assistance Fund. Through the fund, Pennsylvania is slated to receive over $350 million dollars for homeowners in the Commonwealth. Per the Treasury Department’s guidance, states may use the funds to help homeowners in a number of ways, primarily by paying past due amounts on their mortgages.
As homeowner advocates, we believe that the program should be:
- A simple grant
- Easy to apply for
- Easy to access
- With no unnecessary barriers beyond what the Treasury department has outlined
We ask that the General Assembly quickly appropriate the full $350 million by June 30th, to be implemented per the plan submitted by the state and approved by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
We have also learned that the PA General Assembly has to pass a bill to appropriate the funds that will come from the U.S. Treasury for the program. Because the Assembly leaves for several months at the end of June, it’s extremely important that they appropriate the funds by June 30th, and we should make that very clear when reaching out to our legislators.
Contact your PA legislators to deliver the message above! Find state legislators addresses at http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/index.cfm#address.
There is $350 million in homeowner assistance on the line. Let’s make sure our elected officials do the right thing and pass a clean bill with no added barriers!
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