ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Just in time to pay July's rent, residents in Orange County said they got their $1,000 dollar check through Orange County's Individual and Family Assistance program funded through the CARES Act this week.
“Just wanted to update you and let you know that our $1,000 CARES Act rental assistance check arrived in the mail today (July 1st) just in time to pay rent. We are very grateful and happy that they are dispersing the funds,” said one resident tweeted to News 6 reporter Nadeen Yanes.
Danny Cox also got his money on Tuesday after successfully getting through an applying through Orange County’s portal, which has had some issues.
"This past Sunday I actually received and email from the Orange CARES act that said 'Congrats we want to let you know you have been approved for the funds,' and it was Tuesday, the funds were already there," Cox said. "We couldn't be more thankful for what they have done."
According to Orange County officials, they have received received 30,369 applications but with potential duplication, the processing total is 28,869. The county says 'through incorporating and cross-training different departmental staff, adding temporary employees and creating a night side shift, the team on average is reviewing 1200 applications per day'.
“As of right now, this building where we are working in we are trying to get the money out as quickly as possible,” said Dianne Arnold, manager of the Community & Family Services Department. “We have staff working from 7:30 a.m.-9 p.m. at least Monday through Friday everyday.”
Once the applications are processed they are then sent to the County Comptroller's office who then verifies and processes the checks, already doing so to about 3500 applications.
The program is funded through federal CARES Act money which the county allocated $36.5 million dollars to give a one-time $1,000 dollar payment to 30,000 families in need. Since the county said with duplicates they are just under 29,000 applications, they will be opening up the portal one more time on July 13.
“We don’t want to be anywhere short of that 30,000 . So if our numbers go down due to denials, we want to go back out and get enough applications to get a minimum of 30,000,” Arnold said. “For the CARES funding, it could be the final opportunity on July 13th.”