DAUPHIN COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) – An Emergency Renter’s Assistance Program has relaunched in Dauphin County.

“We still have a lot of people in our community that really struggle,” said Darrel Reinford, the Executive Director of Christian Churches United. “Rents have really increased since the pandemic. I think we all know that. And again, if you’re low income and your rent goes up five, 10%, that really makes it hard to make ends meet.”

With this Reinford says a renter’s assistance program that stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic has relaunched.

“It’s called the emergency rental assistance program, and it’s run through the county,” Reinford added. “It is. It was initially started to help those that were had experienced hardship during the pandemic. And thankfully, there’s still some funding around that still needs to be used for that purpose. So, it is still a program for people that were affected during the pandemic. They do have to be able to document that during the public health emergency, which went up through early 2023. So, folks do have to be able to say that they had some hardship during that time and meet current other qualifications. But that’s the main piece to qualify.”

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Reinford tells abc27 News, the programs funding came from the government and officially relaunches Monday after a brief hiatus.

“So actually, there were so many applications at the beginning of the program that they had to sort of stop applications until they processed through all those applications,” said Reinford. “I think there were roughly 5000 applications. And so, we actually just finished processing that first round of applications here in recent weeks. And so, since there’s still some funding left, they opened up the program again.”

Reinford reminds the public they are not taking walk in appointments for people looking to join this program.

“The applications will just be open for a two-week time frame,” Reinford added. “So, it is important that people get on. But again, you can do it any time of day online and that’s really the best way to apply online if you can.”

If you are interested in signing up for this program, you can call 211 or you can also reach out to rentutilityassist@dauphincounty.org

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.