‘RentHelpMN’ Funding Launches To Help Renters, Landlords Affected By Pandemic

There are now government funds available to help pay the bills of both renters and landlords impacted by the pandemic.

State officials recently announced the new rental assistance program, RentHelpMN, and it is open for applications. It’s targeted at low to moderate income renters who have gotten caught up in overdue rent and utilities dating back to March 13 of 2020.

Due to federal funding through the stimulus bill passed late last year, the state of Minnesota received about $375 million dollars for emergency rental assistance, $289 million of it going to the state and $85 million to localities in the Twin Cities’ metro area.

There will be one statewide portal for rental assistance. The state, working with participating local governments, will distribute the funds. There’ll also be community organization partners that can help renters navigate the application process, or point them to other resources.

Landlords are being encouraged to inform their tenants about RentHelpMN.

For more information and to apply, renters can visit renthelpmn.org. That’s RentHelpMN.o-r-g. There’s also the Greater Twin Cities United Way’s 211 Resource Helpline, which will have multilingual staff available to help answer questions about the rental assistance. That’s available Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Meanwhile, the state has launched a mobile vaccination unit to increase equitable access for the COVID-19 vaccine. More on that in the next update.