Beat the Heat

As we hit mid-summer, we are trying to "beat the heat" of increasing demand.

We've been saying the same thing for a couple of years now: the federal government passed an unprecedented amount of support for emergency rental assistance during the pandemic. Those funds allowed Jesse Tree to grow the amount of services we could provide, as well as other housing agencies' ability to support low-income families. During the pandemic, for the first time since the 1980s, housing agencies actually had capacity to meet the needs of people being most affected by rising housing prices.

Jesse Tree's internal COVID-era funding ran out in December, and in 2023 we are providing about 100 families with $150,000 each month in emergency rental assistance, compared to $250,000 each month last year. We are still able to support many families, but certainly not with as much assistance as before.

Thankfully, since 2021 we have had two other federal resources to turn to, in funding being administered by BCACHA and IHFA. When we haven't been able to support people with funding over the last two years, we've at least been able to point them in this direction.

This month, the funds in Ada County finally ran out, and we saw an additional 50 applications come from Ada County residents in July compared to June. We are already seeing the effects of these programs running out on local renters, and Jesse Tree is now the last stop for many people.

These federal housing programs - in addition to many others including child care assistance, food stamps, student loan payments, etc., are also timing out at the same time.

Thank you for being a part of our work as we deal with increasing pressure to serve more families in need.

PS: If you haven’t seen it, we started a monthly giving program - “The Neighborhood” - to help us sustain the level of support we provide to our community.