With the aim of helping lower-income Alaskans avoid homelessness, the launch of the Alaska Housing Relief lottery will see one time payments of up to $1,200 be made available to Alaska residents who are struggling to cover the cost of housing as a result of COVID-19.
Distributed by the lottery, the money will come from $10m in federal coronavirus relief funds administered by the Alaska Housing Finance Corp (AHFC), which in itself has been made available to the northern state through the existence of the CARES Act.
Applications for the lottery are at no cost and open between the dates of June 15 to 26, with the scheme only being described as a lottery in order to represent the randomised nature of the award system for the eligible individuals.
Sue Brogan, United Way of Anchorage’s chief operating officer, stated: “People are hurting right now. These funds will give them the support and hope they desperately need.”
Every household within the state is eligible for up to $1,200 and are required to complete a questionnaire which includes their name, address and proof of income loss in order to be considered eligible for the scheme.
In addition to this, households must have lost income solely due to COVID-19 and must have lost over 20% of the median income of their community to be eligible. As a result, the state agency expects the program to serve between 8,000 and 12,000 households.
Winners of the lottery will see their respective payments made directly to landlords or mortgage lenders with the July 2020 billing cycle scheduled as the target date.
This is not the first time that the AHFC has used a lottery process to provide previous assistance programs and has proved successful in the past as it excludes a first-come, first-serve process thus allowing for the corporation to provide information regarding the program to as many Alaskans as possible including those situated in more-remote rural communities.
AHFC Executive Director and CEO Bryan Butcher concluded: “Our data shows that it’s better to keep Alaskans stably housed through prevention efforts both in terms of their mental and physical health but also as a cost-effective measure.”