{"id":7340,"date":"2020-04-29T21:29:15","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T01:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=7340"},"modified":"2020-04-29T21:29:24","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T01:29:24","slug":"lakeland-to-launch-a-rental-assistance-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2020\/04\/29\/lakeland-to-launch-a-rental-assistance-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland to launch a rental assistance program"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Rent is due May 1 and for people laid off or furloughed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it\u2019s one more stressor on a long list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city of Lakeland and Polk County are offering residents rental assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both municipalities are using funds from the Coronavirus Aid for Rent & Expenses (CARE) program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting Monday at 8 a.m., Lakeland will launch its first rental assistance program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy phone\u2019s been ringing off the hook. So, if that\u2019s any indication of what we\u2019re going to see on Monday, our offices have better be ready,\u201d said Kevin Cook, Lakeland\u2019s communications director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Applicants must apply online<\/a>. For assistance by phone, call 863-834-CARE (2273).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve done TurboTax this is very similar. It just takes you right through. The application\u2019s going to be available on the city\u2019s website and that\u2019s lakelandgov.net<\/a>,\u201d said Cook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Applicants must meet criteria to qualify:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eligible recipients must be a City of Lakeland resident<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eligible recipients must be delinquent on rent and\/or public utilities<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Show verifiable loss of income related to COVID-19 impacts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Household income \u2264 80 percent AMI ($47,050 for a family of four)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maximum award of three months or $5,000, whichever occurs first<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe entire county is going to be served, or eligible to be served, it just depends on how quickly the money runs out,\u201d said Tamara West, the housing and neighborhood development manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polk County launched its own rental assistance program on April 11. Its program covers everyone outside the Lakeland\u2019s city limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe received over 13,000 calls,\u201d said West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can apply online, by phone or by mail. First step is to call the Homeless Coalition of Polk County at (863) 687-8386.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The county has similar criteria as Lakeland\u2019s program without an income eligibility requirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTechnically if you\u2019re laid off, you don\u2019t have any income. We do have like a priority: the very low, the low and then people who would have not been eligible but now are eligible because they have no income,\u201d said West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polk County has access to roughly $2 million for rental assistance, according to West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCapping it at $3,500 for up to 2 months but if we get some more funding because there\u2019s supposed to be a second wave of funds, so we might extend it if we have additional funding,\u201d said West.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rent is due May 1 and for people laid off or furloughed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it\u2019s one more stressor on a long list. The city of Lakeland and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}