SNOW HILL – Though it missed the first round of grants, Worcester County is expected to be among the jurisdictions applying for eviction relief funding in the future.
On Monday, Gov. Larry Hogan announced that eight counties — including Wicomico and Somerset — had received Maryland Eviction Prevention Partnership grants. At Tuesday’s meeting of the Worcester County Commissioners, Commissioner Ted Elder pointed out Worcester was not among the recipients.
“I was just wondering how we got omitted,” he said.
Hogan’s office on Monday announced the award of $2.3 million in Maryland Eviction Prevention Partnership grants, which are funded by the federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. The $2.3 million is the first wave of funding in Hogan’s promised $30 million to prevent evictions across the state during the COVID-19 pandemic. Somerset County received a $100,000 grant while Wicomico Count received $1 million, the largest grant awarded.
Elder said he hoped staff would find out how Worcester County could get a similar grant.
Weston Young, incoming assistant chief administrative officer, said Worcester County staff had not been aware that the grant funding was available.
“Our CDBG folks have done more research,” Young said. “There’s a meeting on the 18th that they plan to attend to get more information. As we’ve corresponded, there was nothing on the Department of Housing and Community Development’s website about Governor Hogan’s announcement that $30 million was going to go toward preventing evictions.”
He said staff reached out to the governor’s office in early July and found out that the first round of awards had already been made.
“It wasn’t on our radar,” Young said. “We couldn’t find where we missed it. So with that, it’s on our radar now.”
He added that for this sort of grant the county would work with a subrecipient such as social services or Diakonia and that staff had already reached out to both.
“We plan to go after it on the next round,” he said.
