Charleston County leaders to look at additional $9.8 million in rental assistance funds

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Millions of dollars in additional emergency rental assistance funding could be coming to Charleston County.

Charleston County councilmembers will look at potentially approving more than $9.8 million Thursday to help people impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic pay for housing.

The money is available through the US Treasury and would be added to the already approved $12.4 million which started the county’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program.

Charleston county councilwoman and chair of the housing subcommittee Anna Johnson praised the rental assistance program. So far, she says the county has reached out to more than 64,000 people about the emergency assistance.

“I am thinking about someone recently who was help who lost her job and through the emergency rental assistance and help from the Charleston County Library, they were able to fill out an application and made it just in time to pay rent,” Johnson said.

She said she welcomes the new funding.

“I am certainly going to approve it and I hope my colleagues do the same because Charleston is known for one of the places with the highest amount of evictions and with people losing their jobs, this is going to be a great help,” Johnson said.

Councilwoman Jenny Costa Honeycutt also said she was “incredibly impressed” with the emergency rental assistance program and wants to see it continue.

“This program has been implemented like no other. This is a national model for how federal funds should be distributed to people in need,” Honeycutt said. “South Carolina is open for business and we need to be a part of that to help stabilize people coming out of this pandemic. "

If approved on Thursday, the money would help establish a new program designed to rehouse individuals that have become homeless due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

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