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With the end of a federal moratorium on evictions looming, Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) doled out $2.3 million in eviction prevention funding to eight counties on Monday.
The money is the first wave of Hogan鈥檚 $30 million eviction prevention program, according to a news release from the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development. The $2.3 million in federally funded grants will be split up between several rural Maryland counties:
- Allegany County 鈥� $55,000
- Cecil County 鈥� $100,000
- Charles County 鈥� $200,000
- Frederick County 鈥� $722,129
- Kent County 鈥� $84,246
- Queen Anne鈥檚 County 鈥� $80,000
- Somerset County 鈥� $100,000
- Wicomico County 鈥� $1,000,000
Advocates have estimated that more than 150,000 Marylanders who lost income due to the coronavirus pandemic are at risk of eviction when the federal moratorium expires on Saturday. Local officials set up a slew of rental assistance programs in the early days of the pandemic, but were quickly overwhelmed with applications.
Officials in Montgomery County, where some 20,000 households are at risk of eviction, previously聽聽that they鈥檒l need help from the state to avoid a 鈥渢sunami of evictions.鈥�
The $30 million program is funded by the federal Community Development Block Grant program, according to the state鈥檚 news release.
Lydia Walther-Rodriguez, the regional director for CASA Baltimore, said at a rally earlier this month聽 that even the $30 million in state assistance, coupled with roughly $30 million in rental relief from local governments, won鈥檛 be enough to offset the oncoming eviction crisis.
Lawmakers and advocates have聽聽Hogan to allocate more state funding toward rental relief and to聽聽the state鈥檚 moratorium on evictions, which requires renters to prove that their economic hardship was caused by the coronavirus pandemic. State officials previously indicated that more funding for rental relief could soon be available.
鈥淲e are following with [the Maryland Emergency Management Agency] at the state level and FEMA at the federal level to see if eviction assistance qualifies as an eligible expense under disaster relief,鈥� Deputy Secretary of Budget and Management Mark Nicole聽聽in a meeting earlier this month. 鈥淭hat $30 million all of a sudden could become $120 [million].鈥�
