The City of Orlando will offer a second round of COVID-19 emergency rental assistance starting in February. This time a group of counselors will help tenants whose landlords opt to evict them instead of working with the program. 

On Feb. 1, our application portal will open to provide Emergency Rental Assistance for households financially impacted by COVID-19. Residents are encouraged to start gathering necessary documents and confirm eligibility in preparation at https://t.co/0YLXn5vbq6. pic.twitter.com/LRxpXpN4j5

— City of Orlando Gets Vaccinated 💉 #IGotMyShot (@citybeautiful) January 19, 2022

Usually tenants and landlords work together as part of the Orlando Emergency Rental Assistance Program. 

But in some cases, they can’t or won’t, and choose to evict renters instead, says city Housing and Community Development Director Oren Henry. And that’s where a team of special counselors come in.

“That tenant could say, ‘well gee, I need some help finding another unit,’ and we would provide assistance to that tenant in getting another unit and maybe even paying a deposit and the first month’s rent or something.”

Henry says this help is still greatly needed almost three years into the pandemic.

“There are still a number of people that are unemployed or underemployed that you know lost their jobs with whoever they were working for went away. We all know there have been a lot of restaurants that have been closed forever. So you have people who have got behind and lost whatever savings they might have had trying to stay afloat and they still find that they need rental assistance.”

The program’s online portal will open on February 1, 2022 and anyone who can prove COVID 19-hardship is encouraged to apply for help.