Regulatory Alert- Changes to Orange County CARES Rental Assistance Program

Orange County CARES Individual and Families Program

Initially, Orange County aimed to disperse funding directly to an applicant's community, utility provider, medical provider, etc. However, the County has since revised the program's funding to be dispersed directly to an approved applicant. 

This is in part, attributable to two factors.

1. Orange County has since found that provisions of CARES Act funding, grants approved applicants the ability to use monies towards other essential household expenses. The County, therefore, feels that it cannot require an individual or family to use this funding strictly towards the services (i.e.- rent, utility, medical) that were previously listed.
   • In light of this, Orange County will not be launching its vendor portal to collect previously required documentation.
2. Further, given the overwhelming application pool, the County does not have the capacity to collect the volume of vendor documentation that would be required to expeditiously process and disperse payments. 

REVISED FUNDING DISPERSEMENT

• Now, applications that have been approved will be processed for direct payment via check, sent by mail to an approved applicant's provided address. 

NEXT PROGRAM APPLICATION SUBMISSION WINDOW

• The Individual and Family Assistance Program will reopen on Monday, June 22, 2020, at 8:00 AM. 
  • The Program will allow 10,000 residents into the application portal before temporarily closing for processing.

For additional program information, please visit the links included below.

• Orange County Coronavirus (COVID-19) Updates
• Orange County CARES Individual and Family Assistance Program
• Information released by Orange County's Economic Recovery Task Force provides individuals with presentation materials, insight, and more pertaining to business and theme park reopening protocols, as well as, helpful consumer confidence survey results that can be filtered by zip code and demographics.