City of Orlando Received Federal Funds to Help Orlando Residents

The City of Orlando Received Federal Funds to Help Orlando Residents in Rental Assistance 

March 1, 2021– ORLANDO, FL – The United States Department of the Treasury recently allocated $8.6 million in federal funds to help City of Orlando residents who are in need of rental assistance. City of Orlando staff is currently working on establishing the qualifying criteria, program guidelines, building the back-end technology infrastructure and creating the application portal for residents to apply. 

Prior to the application period opening to residents, the qualifying criteria and program guidelines will be considered and approved by the Orlando City Council. The Orlando City Council’s next regularly scheduled meeting is Monday, March 22, 2021 and staff hopes to have the program considered at that meeting. 

Per the Treasury’s requirements for this program, to be eligible, a household must include: 

• one or more individuals within the household qualified for unemployment benefits or experienced a reduction in household income, incurred significant costs, or experienced other financial hardship due, directly or indirectly, to the COVID-19 outbreak; 

• one or more individuals within the household demonstrate a risk of experiencing homelessness or housing instability; and 

• the household has a household income at or below 80% of area median income which for a family of four is $58,160 in Orlando.