Voters at Fall Town Meeting may be asked to approve an emergency rental assistance program for residents who need help with housing costs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A proposed warrant article submitted to Town Administrator Tim Bragan on Tuesday afternoon by the Community Preservation Committee (CPC) would establish the COVID Emergency Rental Assistance Program and reserve $20,000––to be transferred from the fiscal 2020 Community Preservation Fund’s unspecified reserve to its affordable housing reserve.
The CPC would be the source of the funding, but the committee itself does not have the resources or responsibility to administer this type of monetary relief. For this reason, the committee is currently considering which town body could administer the rental assistance to residents.
Didi Chadran, chair of the CPC, said the goal of this program is “helping neighbors who are adversely impacted by the consequences of the pandemic … [and] stepping up as a community.” Chadran said he hopes that CPC’s recognition of the need for assistance during the pandemic will encourage other organizations in town to help, too.
When Bragan offered the Select Board a preview of the Fall Town Meeting warrant Tuesday night, the CPC’s article was missing from that draft, as he had received it only that afternoon. Select Board Chair Alice von Loesecke said she was aware of the proposal because it had been discussed by the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust (MAHT) as a possibility, but the trust hadn’t approved it. That was because there were so many questions about how it would be administered, how it would be measured, and who was going to collect data on who required relief, she said. “This is a lot of work to find out all that information.”
Bragan said he would include a complete article, one reviewed by Town Counsel Mark Lanza, in the next draft of the warrant, which he will present to the board at its meeting Tuesday, Sept. 15.
John Osborn contributed to this article.
