The state has submitted for review its plan to spend $50 million in federal funds to help homeowners financially strained during the pandemic by loss of income to pay their mortgages.
The U.S. Treasury Department is reviewing Alaska’s plan, along with those from other states.
“Our mortgage plan is with Treasury for review and approval,” Stacy Barnes, governmental affairs director at the Alaska Housing Finance Corp., said last week.
The $50 million is Alaska’s allocation of the $9.96 billion Congress appropriated for mortgage relief in the American Rescue Plan Act this past spring.
The assistance for homeowners is in addition to the $242 million in federal pandemic aid designated for renters in Alaska. AHFC has been managing that program since the summer, and had distributed $163 million for rent and utility assistance to more than 55,300 households as of Monday.
The agency continues to send out payments to help with rent in three-month increments, as tenants verify their continued loss of work or income due to the pandemic’s hit to the economy.
As of last Monday, AHFC had distributed more than $326,000 in assistance for 68 rental households in Wrangell.
While many other states have been slow to distribute the federally funded rental assistance payments, Alaska has consistently been among the leaders in sending out the payments, according to Treasury Department statistics. Congress appropriated $25 billion to states, municipalities and tribes for the rental aid program.
“Providing critical resources to landlords and tenants statewide, in conjunction with statewide nonprofit agencies and tribal partners, has proven to be foundational for shaping the highly successful program,” Bryan Butcher, chief executive office at AHFC, said last week.
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