Homelessness Prevention
Qualifications & Requirements
Path Home’s Homelessness Prevention Program can help families who are at risk of losing their housing through an eviction. Path Home can provide financial assistance and support to help you maintain your current housing. Before filling out our Homelessness Prevention Pre-Application, please review the information and requirements below.
To receive assistance from our Homelessness Prevention Program:
A household must reside in the Portland metro area (Multnomah County) and have at least one child under the age of 18 in their care.
This includes a person in their third trimester of pregnancy.
Path Home has multiple service options and sources of funding to help families avoid losing their current housing. When a family submits a pre-application, Path Home staff will assess which services a family qualifies for. Path Home will work with each family to determine the best option based on funding availability and qualifications.
Service options and sources of funding are detailed below:
1.Health Related Social Needs (HRSN)
Households with at least one member enrolled in the Oregon Health Plan (OHP) may qualify for assistance with up to 6 months of current and past-due rent, if all of the following qualifications are met:
At least one member of the household is a current OHP member
There is an imminent risk of losing current housing
The OHP member has a clinical health need, examples include but are not limited to: a pregnant person in the household, a person under 6 or over 65 in the household, or a person with a complex physical health need or behavioral health condition
Household is at or below 30% Area Median Income (AMI)
Eligibility verification and pre-approval from the OHP provider is required.
Path Home can only provide services to OHP members who have Health Share of Oregon as their plan provider and who currently reside in Multnomah County.
2. Centralized Emergency Rent Assistance (CERA)
Households who have a pending eviction or termination notice may be eligible for emergency rent assistance to prevent eviction.
The following qualifications must be met to be considered for this program:
Resident of Multnomah County
Has pending eviction or termination notice with notice to vacate within 21 days or less
Household is at or below 65% Area Median Income (AMI)
Additional application materials must be completed and submitted to Home Forward with required documentation. Path Home staff can help families complete this application.
3. Private Funding
Path Home also has a limited amount of funding for households that can afford ongoing rent but need one-time or very short-term financial assistance to maintain their housing, or for households that do not qualify for the other funding soruces. Applicants must provide verification that they are able to pay their ongoing rent after receiving help from Path Home.
Income requirements:
Rent can be no more than two-thirds of total net income (cash & non-cash combined)
Net cash income must be at least $300 more than rent
Gross income can be no more than 65% area median income (AMI)
All income sources must be verifiable
A household must verify that they will be able to resume paying rent, in full, within the time and funding limitations of the program.
The minimum income requirements are intended to ensure that paying rent is possible while allowing for lower-income households to qualify. The gross income gap is intended to ensure that our limited resources are directed to households with the greatest need.
The assistance available must be sufficient to prevent a household from losing their housing.
At times, a household may meet all of the previously listed qualifications, but the amount needed to avoid eviction or to pay off a balance is greater than Path Home’s budget allows. In these cases, in order for Path Home to make a payment, both tenant and landlord will need to agree to a payment arrangement for any balance that may remain after Path Home provides assistance. Arrangements should be both agreeable to the landlord and manageable for the tenant. This ensures that a tenant will be able to keep their housing after Path Home has invested in their stability. If desired, Path Home can help negotiate the terms of such an arrangement.
Selection Process
Applications for Path Home’s Homelessness Prevention Program may be submitted at any time. Applications will be processed as quickly as possible upon receipt of all necessary documents. Incomplete applications cannot be processed.
Applications will be selected to receive assistance, at random, from the pool of all qualified applications twice per month. Applicants will be notified whether their application is selected or not.
Selection schedule:
Applications submitted the 1st-12th of the month will be selected between the 13th and 15th of the month.
Applications submitted the 13th-end of the month will be selected between the 1st and 3rd of the following month.
Applicants not selected in the first round of the month can elect to have their application added to the second round of the month. Applications not selected in the second round cannot be rolled over to a new month.
If your application is selected:
A final review will be conducted to confirm that your household meets all qualifications for the program; Path Home will collect complete household information that will allow us to provide financial assistance at that time.
Prioritizing factors
While applicants are selected at random, we do attempt to prioritize certain household situations:
● Households that have already received an eviction notice and/or have a court date scheduled or have gone to court
● Single-income-earner households
● Number of children in household
After you complete the application, submit it by email, fax, mail, or in person:
By email to prevention@path-home.org. Please put “Prevention Application” in the subject line to avoid any delay in processing your application
By fax to (503) 662-1862, Attn: Prevention
In person or by mail to 6220 SE 92nd Ave., Portland OR 97266