Overwhelming demand for rental assistance exhausts Westmoreland County funds

Westmoreland County’s rental assistance program will stop accepting new applications to help low-income tenants pay monthly bills and housing costs, officials announced Monday.

In November, the county said it would use about $80,000 in leftover funds and another $727,000 earned through bank interest over the past three years to resume the program.

Union Mission in Latrobe, which operates the program for Westmoreland County, posted a message over the weekend saying those funds have been exhausted and, as of Dec. 23, no new applications were to be accepted as a result of overwhelming demand.

Westmoreland County Human Services Director Rob Hamilton confirmed that the application period has closed.

“It’s a great thing we had the money but a bad thing we had so many people who need the help,” Hamilton said. “We’re trying to take on a whole new approach to how we are addressing homelessness. I would anticipate we will have a more hands-on approach and more solutions in 2025.”

The rental assistance program was created by the federal government as a response to the covid-19 pandemic. Westmoreland County received about $37 million in funding for the program that helped renters pay landlords and keep the lights on and water running in their homes.

Renters with incomes 80% of the county’s median income level, just less than $81,000 for a family of four, qualified for monthly grants.

Dan Carney, executive director of the Union Mission, last month estimated the new funds from the county would assist about 200 renters for two to three months. He said the program received nearly 500 new applications since mid-November.

“Even if 40% to 50% of those qualify, we will have more applications than we can fund,” Carney said.

He previously said 3,122 households received assistance during the three years of the program’s operation. Participating families received an average of about $7,000 in funding over the course of the program that provided assistance for up to 18 months per recipient.

Westmoreland officials estimate there are about 35,000 rental units in the county, and 57% of renting households, or nearly 20,000, met financial eligibility requirements for the program.

“The way the economy is, the margin for error is so much slimmer now. I know the county is looking at ways to broaden our reach. We need to look for additional funds to tap into to keep this help going,” Carney said.

With the rental assistance dollars exhausted, Hamilton said, the work of the county’s homeless assistance advisory board, which was formed this year and includes representatives from private social service programs, becomes even more important moving into the new year.

“We’re conducting an analysis of all of our community groups to establish the need and bring people together so we are not playing whack a mole. We know that when people are put at risk of homelessness without a solution, in six months they will be homeless,” Hamilton said. “The hope is we’ve been working on this and we can move the needle enough to put out programs to support those folks in the coming months.”