The Central Iowa Emergency Rental Assistance study, which launched in August, aims to determine how long low-income families need to receive rental assistance during a crisis so that they don’t lose housing.
The study is being led by the Mid-Iowa Health Foundation’s UpLift initiative. UpLift project manager Ashley Ezzio said rental assistance is offered in Iowa, but most programs provide different payment amounts for different lengths of time. She said local programs typically won’t cover the full cost of rent or they will provide a one-time payment that can only be accessed once every 12 or 18 months.
Ezzio said there isn’t a lot of local research behind these parameters, and that’s what she hopes to provide with the new study…