Common Council

Dane CORE Program will begin accepting pre-applications - Beginning on Wednesday 2.17.2021

Dear Neighbors,

Please see the below message from the Tenant Resource Center and spread the word.

Approximately $15 million of federal funds in direct rental assistance is being provided by the City of Madison and Dane County. The Tenant Resource Center (TRC) will, once again, be facilitating a large-scale, community-wide emergency rental assistance effort. These funds are significantly different than the funds provided by the CARES Act in the summer of 2020 as they come with numerous requirements of income verification (per HUD 24 CFR 5.609) as determined by the US Department of Treasury. Receiving these funds does not affect citizenship status as they are not weighed in determination of public charge. There are no restrictions around receiving these funds based on immigration status. The TRC does not ask for or collect any information about immigration status.

We know this will be a challenge to many renters but we are here to help! We will be scheduling multiple 1-hour training sessions (Register by clicking on the date link -- Feb 19, 2021, 1:00 pm, Feb 23, 2021, 11:00 am, and Feb 25, 2021, 1:00 pm) for service providers who are interested in better understanding the Dane CORE application system and process. We will also be updating the Dane CORE website beginning next week with locations/dates/times that we will be providing in-person application support for community members. We will be scheduling appointments at those locations and adhere to ALL public health safety measures. We will require those that we are assisting to adhere to all public health safety measures as well.

The Dane CORE Pre-Application is an Online system that Tenant (renters) and Property owners (landlords or agents) can access to pre-apply for rental assistance funds for up to 12 months of back-owed rent that has been accrued since March 12, 2020.

We anticipate thousands of pre-applications being submitted in the coming weeks. BOTH tenants and landlords are required to submit documents as a requirement of these federal funds. The TRC has no control over the required documents and therefore cannot waive these requirements. 

TRC cannot guarantee that a pre-application will be authorized for payment but tenants and landlords will receive email updates  1) when they submit a pre-application for processing, 2) if there is any additional information needed for processing, 3) (if authorized) when a payment is being sent on behalf the tenant to the landlord and/or 4) if the application is ineligible for payment.

Payment processing will occur once a week and will begin the last week of February.

Please see the attachments for additional information about how to apply, the eligibility criteria, and the required documents.

Take care,

Tenant Resource Center