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Jay Manning / PublicSource
Allegheny County officials realized last autumn that Pennsylvania’s CARES Rent Relief Program wasn’t helping many tenants and landlords here. So they made a decision apparently unique in the commonwealth: They largely ditched state rules, stopped spending state money, and opened the spigot on their own rent relief program.
Months before, in June, County Executive Rich Fitzgerald dedicated as much as $25 million in the county s federal CARES Act allocation to rent relief. The county used that money to double the state-set per-tenant maximum of $750 a month to $1,500, plus add as much as $200 in utility aid.
Initially, the county and its contractors, led by nonprofit ACTION-Housing, tried to pay some tenants using state funds, dished out through the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency [PHFA], and others with the county CARES pot.