![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2021\/03\/SMITHCOUNTYSEAL-e1614782942603-150x150.jpg\")
SMITH COUNTY — Smith County has been granted more than $7 million in rental and utility assistance funding from the U.S. Treasury\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Emergency Rental Assistance Program aimed to help Smith County families who have been financially affected by COVID-19. On Tuesday, the Smith County Commissioners Court approved an agreement with PATH (People Attempting to Help), for administration of the Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) Program for Smith County.<\/p>\n
Smith County Judge Nathaniel Moran said the county is not set up internally to administer grants of this nature, but PATH is. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why we have strong partnerships with organizations like PATH,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, adding that Smith County will audit the transactions to keep track of how the money is being spent.<\/p>\n
PATH will be responsible for tenant application processing while Smith County will be responsible for the funding. Smith County was granted $7,032,829, and will pay PATH 5 percent of those funds to help administer the program.<\/p>\n
In the coming months, the ERA funds provided to PATH through Smith County will help prevent homelessness for hundreds of our Tyler and Smith County neighbors as they continue to experience job loss and financial setbacks due to COVID-19, Andrea Wilson, Executive Director of PATH, said.<\/p>\n
Wilson said PATH would get the word out to the community when they are ready to take applications for the funding. Smith County and PATH anticipate that the first payments could be made as soon as 45 days. The funds will be available to tenants for rental and utility assistance, as well as to landlords.<\/p>\n
Qualifying applications must meet annual income limits, must have been impacted by COVID-19 and have housing instability. Applicants will be required to provide necessary documentation to PATH for eligibility.<\/p>\n
According to guidelines, found at https:\/\/home.treasury.gov\/policy-issues\/cares\/emergency-rental-assistance-program<\/a>, an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153eligible household\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is defined as a renter household in which at least one or more individuals meets the following criteria:<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00b7 Qualifies for unemployment or has experienced a reduction in household income, incurred significant costs, or experienced a financial hardship due to COVID-19;<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00b7 Demonstrates a risk of experiencing homelessness or housing instability; and<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00b7 Has a household income at or below 80 percent of the area median.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SMITH COUNTY — Smith County has been granted more than $7 million in rental and utility assistance funding from the U.S. Treasury\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Emergency Rental Assistance Program aimed to help Smith County families who have been financially affected by COVID-19. On Tuesday, the Smith County Commissioners Court approved an agreement with PATH (People Attempting to Help), … Continue reading Smith County partners with PATH for COVID related rental assistance<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":976375,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2021\/03\/SMITHCOUNTYSEAL-e1614782942603-150x150.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Smith County partners with PATH for COVID related rental assistance","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-976371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 10:15:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2021\/03\/SMITHCOUNTYSEAL-e1614782942603-150x150.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Smith County partners with PATH for COVID related rental assistance","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=976371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":976374,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976371\/revisions\/976374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/976375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=976371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=976371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=976371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}