From Crisis to Recovery: Helping Fulton County Residents Access Emergency Rental Assistance

How we helped Fulton County’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program distribute over $110 million to eligible households impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Client

Fulton County is situated in the north-central part of Georgia and is the state’s most populous county, with a population exceeding one million as of the 2020 census. Created by the Georgia General Assembly in 1853, Fulton County is a testament to the region's rich history and growth.

Challenge

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the global COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. In the following months, unprecedented federal aid was distributed across the country. In early March 2021, Fulton County, Georgia, received federal funding for its Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) to offer emergency rental and utility assistance to eligible residents impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the county’s initial responsiveness and successful outreach efforts, overwhelming demand for the program within the affected community forced the county to pause application intake to make sure residents were served with the highest level of care.

EisnerAmper quickly recognized Fulton County’s immediate needs and identified the services and resources available at our firm to assist the county with the massive backlog of applications. With the need to deliver the ERAP funds as quickly as possible to eligible residents, Fulton County was challenged to identify and deploy resources to:

Address the high demand and volume of applications
Streamline processes
Maintain compliance with program guidelines
Improve adjudication and disbursement timelines

Demand for the program within the affected community forced the county to pause application intake to make sure residents were served with the highest level of care.

Approach

To meet the needs of Fulton County, we immediately and effectively augmented case management resources to expand application review capacity and expedite the rate of case adjudications and payment disbursements. In August 2021, we expanded program administration support operations to provide services across all functional areas of Fulton County’s ERAP to coincide with the reopening of the application portal.

Our depth and breadth of experienced resources were ready to deploy as additional needs arose. We continually assessed processes and policies and standardized and streamlined the case management function with a strong focus on quality and compliance with program guidelines.

EisnerAmper helped boost the average number of payments each week by 109% and the amount of assistance disbursed into the community each week by 160%.

We worked in close partnership with Fulton County to accomplish the following:

Augmented staff and resources by over 400%

Rapidly expanded existing infrastructure by onboarding team members to augment staffing capacity by over 400% and service constituents more quickly.

Increased the rate of adjudications and disbursements

Increased the rate, efficiency, and accuracy of disbursements by standardizing and streamlining system-driven processes, progressing to daily processing and same-day payments.

Provided comprehensive program management

Provided program and financial management services led by an experienced team in disaster management, internal controls, and project management.

Delivered proactive data analysis strategies

Delivered data-driven program and case management strategies, enabled by KPI determination, implementation, and reporting to provide ongoing optimization of the program and policy compliance.

Results

Fulton County’s ERAP successfully administered over $110 million of emergency rental assistance funding to help eligible households impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the critical need for financial assistance to renters and landlords during the pandemic, Fulton County was able to augment its staffing and infrastructure with EisnerAmper resources to get these federal funds to those most in need through the adjudication of over 36,000 total program applications.

Due to the exceptional program performance recognized by the U.S. Treasury, Fulton County requested and received nearly $70 million in additional emergency rental assistance funding through reallocations from other jurisdictions across the country. Fulton County utilized these additional reallocated funds to further serve the continuing needs of its constituents.

Atlanta Georgia Buildings

Average ERAP assistance awarded per household: $10,240

Program Timeframe	Phase	Cumulative Funds Disbursed
1-3 months	Fulton County Program Initiation	$5 million
	EisnerAmper Staff Augmentation	$15 million
	EisnerAmper Staff Augmentation Expanded	$30 million
3-10 months	EisnerAmper Program Administration Support	$50 million
	All Initial ERA1 Funds Disbursed	$75 million
	All Initial ERA2 Funds Disbursed	$95 million
10-18 months	All Reallocated ERA Funds Disbursed	$110 million

From our initial engagement to comprehensive program and financial management support, the rate of adjudications and disbursements increased exponentially – exceeding a 109% increase in the average number of weekly payments and a 160% increase in the amount of assistance disbursed into the community on a weekly basis. For Fulton County, this equates to exceptional constituent services and, just as importantly, a direct economic impact on the local community.

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EisnerAmper provides assurance, advisory and outsourcing services to hundreds of governmental clients, including federal, state, local and county/parish governmental entities, municipalities, public retirement systems, school boards and districts and more.

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