{"id":1319375,"date":"2020-04-09T16:36:06","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T22:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=995432"},"modified":"2020-04-09T16:36:06","modified_gmt":"2020-04-09T22:36:06","slug":"garfield-county-extends-cash-assistance-program-for-rent-food-during-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/garfield-county-extends-cash-assistance-program-for-rent-food-during-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Garfield County extends cash assistance program for rent, food during COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"691\" height=\"443\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2019\/10\/PI-Garfield-county-news-small.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"Post Independent Garfield County news graphic\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2019\/10\/PI-Garfield-county-news-small.jpg 691w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2019\/10\/PI-Garfield-county-news-small-300x192.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 691px) 100vw, 691px\"><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Garfield County has funded and expanded an existing cash relief program to provide aid to local residents affected by COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>County commissioners on Monday voted unanimously to approve a transfer of $500,000 of emergency funds to the Department of Human Services for Garfield County\u2019s Emergency General Assistance program, which can cover rent, utilities, transportation, food and some personal needs.<\/p>\n<p>The program has been around for years, but typically only has about $10,000 budgeted each year. Far less than the budgeted amount for the General Assistance program was actually paid out in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>This year, commission chair John Martin expects that the program will take more than the half a million dollars currently allocated.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\">\n<div class=\"row gspi-donation gspi-donation-mobile p-0\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/pi-banner-paypal.jpg)\" class=\"col-xl-8 p-3 text-center rocket-lazyload\">\n<h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/donate\/?utm_source=article&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_campaign=donation&amp;utm_term=&amp;utm_content=mid-article\">Donate<\/a><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote p402_hide\" readability=\"1.5\">\n<blockquote readability=\"6\">\n<p> \u201cThis program will last until we no don\u2019t have the pandemic and we\u2019re able to get the economy back on its feet.\u201d \u2013Commissioner John Martin<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;\u201cThis program will last until we don\u2019t have the pandemic and we\u2019re able to get the economy back on its feet,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s important to note that this is not the only pot of money that we are utilizing to assist our families,\u201d said Sharon Longhurst-Pritt, director of the county Department of Human Services.<\/p>\n<p>While the general assistance funding adds significantly to the county\u2019s program, human services also recommend people apply for assistance through other national and state programs.<\/p>\n<p>Those include Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), unemployment insurance, Medicaid emergency benefits and others.<\/p>\n<p>While the county asks people to apply for unemployment, food assistance or other programs if eligible, Human Services won\u2019t disqualify a family from receiving the county\u2019s general assistance funding while they are waiting for other assistance.<\/p>\n<p>Paper applications for the financial assistance can be found at ten partner locations around the county, but must be either mailed or dropped off at count buildings in Rifle or Glenwood Springs.<\/p>\n<p>The county also accepts applications over the phone.<\/p>\n<p>To be eligible for the general assistance payments, a person must be a resident of Garfield County, and have a household income of less than $75,000.<\/p>\n<p>A person may be eligible for up to $1,500 in rent assistance, depending on where he or she lives in the county, since Carbondale and Glenwood Springs have higher rent prices, on average.<\/p>\n<p>A household could be eligible to receive a maximum of $3,000 from the county\u2019s program.<\/p>\n<p>Human Services also requires information about the applicant\u2019s available savings before making payouts of emergency assistance.<\/p>\n<p>The applicant must also have a legal presence in the U.S. to be receiving payouts from the county\u2019s taxpayer-supported program.<\/p>\n<p>Human Services does work with families of undocumented persons to see if perhaps there is an adult child with U.S. citizenship in the home that could receive general assistance funds, Longhurst said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re trying to work with people whose status is undocumented, as best we can, but at the end of the day, we do have to have some documented individual in the home,\u201d Longhurst said.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a legal issue, not about restricting access to undocumented individuals, Martin said.<\/p>\n<p>Human Services refer undocumented people in need to the Human Services Commission, which is in a better position to help, he added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe help the Human Services Commission both in grants and discretionary grants to make sure they have money to take care of these folks,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n<p>The final eligibility requirement is that a household must be experiencing hardship due to COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>Many in the county are already facing financial difficulty because of the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>In the past few weeks, an unprecedented number of people have sought assistance from Human Services, Longhurst said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a population that we\u2019ve never seen before. Working people that have never needed assistance in the past now need assistance because they haven\u2019t been able to work in the past month,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Calls have increased by at least 30%, Longhurst said.<\/p>\n<p>The county had 813 total applications for SNAP assistance in the first three months of 2019.<\/p>\n<p>For the same period this year, Human Services received more than 1,300 applications for SNAP.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"mailto:tphippen@postindependent.com\">tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/news\/garfield-county-extends-cash-assistance-program-for-rent-food-during-covid-19\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Garfield County has funded and expanded an existing cash relief program to provide aid to local residents affected by COVID-19. County commissioners on Monday voted unanimously to approve a transfer of $500,000 of emergency funds to the Department of Human Services for Garfield County\u2019s Emergency General Assistance program, which can cover rent, utilities, transportation, food [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1319375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-02 05:54:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1319375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1319375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1319375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1319375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}