NC HOPE rental assistance program adapts to help more tenants keep their homes

If you're a renter in need of help and your landlord refused to participate in the NC HOPE program, you could still qualify for relief.

Up until recently if you applied for rental assistance, and your landlord refused to accept it because of the program rules, you were out of luck. However, that is now changing.

Administrators with the NC HOPE confirm the US Treasury guidelines for the federal emergency rental assistance program is different for the second round of funding than the first round of funding.

This time around landlords don't have to agree to the program for the renter to get the money. Instead, direct payments can be made to tenants when landlords won't participate.

So far, HOPE has been funded by the CARES Act and the first round of money. To prepare for use of the second found of funds, administrators say the HOPE Program is working to revise its payment processes. Fortunately, there have been relatively few landlords who do not want to participate in the program.

If you live in Wake County, their program is called House Wake! which is run by Telamon. Telmon has already started making direct payments to tenants in cases where landlords won't take part in the program.

A representative says, "However, the regulations still require us to first work with the landlords in order to pay them directly where possible. This helps to ensure the landlord in fact receives payments that are due to them."

If you applied previously and were denied due to your landlord not agreeing to the program requirements, apply again to see if you qualify for direct rental and utility payments to be made to you.