The Govern announced yesterday the new funding round for 2021 rental subsidies, with nine million euros to be distributed. It will begin in September and the Govern’s spokesperson, Iago Negueruela, said the regional government hopes that processing and payment “will be faster” than last year, a year after which about 600 families are still waiting for payments.
According to the Govern’s spokesperson, of the 4,700 grants awarded in 2020, 4,117 have been paid out totalling 7.5 million euros, representing 87 percent of the budgeted subsidy. Thus, one year on, 13 percent of the aid is still to be paid and nearly 600 families continue waiting for the money to pay their rents.
In this regard, Negueruela explained that the oustanding subsidy is expected to be paid “shortly”, in the next few days, and hoped that the new funding round for this year can be processed and paid “more quickly”.
The slowness and delay in the payment of these subsidies is a recurring complaint from applicants and the Platform of People Affected by Mortgages (PAH). According to PAH one of the problems is that the Govern uses a computer tool that slows down the process and forces officials to manually review compliance with the requirements to qualify for aid.
As reported by the Govern in a press release, among the improvements planned for the next round will be that partial payments can be made as processing is completed, in order to advance the payments.
So, while paying last year’s outstanding subsidies, yesterday the Govern announced the authorisation of 9.03 million euros for this year’s round of applications for rental subsidies. This aid will be financed with 8.93 million from the State Housing Plan and another 100,000 euros from the Govern’s own funds.
According to the spokesperson, this is the largest funding round for these subsidies, exceeding the 8.7 million budgeted for last year. Negueruela pointed out that in the last six years these subsidies have been progressively increasing and the current nine million represents a fivefold increase on the barely one and a half million that was allocated in 2015, rising during this time from 785 to more than 4,000 beneficiaries on the islands.