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Deadline for CARES Act funding in Montgomery County approaching

DAYTON — If you want to apply for federal COVID-19 relief money through the CARES Act in Montgomery County, there are two important deadlines approaching.

Montgomery County’s Office of CARES Act announced Monday it will be ending all grant programs over the next three weeks – that’s sooner than the county expected.

As News Center 7 reported earlier this year, Montgomery County received $92.8 million from the U.S. Treasury Department as a part of the federal CARES Act for COVID-19 pandemic relief. As of Monday, the county said it has distributed more than $80 million of that to people in need.

That money has helped people with all kinds of things like mortgage or rent assistance, small businesses and agriculture, to name a few.

Monday afternoon, Montgomery County spokesperson, Brianna Wooten, said many of the county programs as a part of the CARES Act are expiring sooner than expected. “But the good news is,” Wooten said, “is that we are actually expending all the funds in this program. And a larger share of the funding is going to the community rather than what we had initially allocated to help the county with its COVID-related expenses. So the good news is the money’s being spent, we won’t have to give it back to the federal government which we did not want, right?, we wanted to make sure it got out into the community where people were hurting and they needed it.”

If you need money for mortgage assistance, for a non-profit, a small business, or for education, childcare, healthcare or agriculture, the application deadline is this coming Friday, October 30.

For help with rent or utility payments, the application deadline is November 13.

“I’m thrilled that we will be able to distribute all of the money,” Montgomery County Commission President Judy Dodge said in a press release the county sent to News Center 7 Monday morning. “When we first received the funds, we knew we could do a lot of good with it. And we have. We have helped more than 2,000 people, organizations, agencies, and local businesses. And we just started the CARES Act program for utilities, with a combined allocation of $10 million for DP&L and Vectren customers. Our eligible citizens need to ensure they apply for that immediately, before the Nov. 13 deadline.”

You can learn more about the programs and apply at the Web site for the Montgomery County Office of CARES Act at www.mcohiocares.org.

Monday afternoon, News Center 7 asked Commissioner Dodge whether the county is currently expecting to see any more COVID-19 relief money from Washington? “As of today, we have not heard one single word so – I would say no,” Dodge said. When News Center 7 asked whether that could change, Dodge said, “Hopefully it does. Because there’s still a lot of change out there. There’s still a lot of need out there. This is almost, I hate to say it, but a drop in the bucket. I mean of course obviously it’s helped. But there is still a lot of need out there.”

Any additional federal funding coming from Washington to Montgomery County would take the U.S. Congress agreeing on a deal to pass another relief bill that eventually gets the President’s signature. House Republicans and Senate Democrats have been deadlocked the last several weeks in Washington trying to get the latest coronavirus relief bill done.

When a reporter asked Dodge what could bring more federal money to the Miami Valley, Dodge, a Democrat, quipped, “What could? Well, maybe after next Tuesday.”

“Maybe that’ll help. Election Day. If things change,” Dodge said. “But we’re not hearing anything so I don’t even want to discuss it anymore because we’re not hearing anything.”

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