Amount allocated: Up to $5 billion
Overview: States will be eligible to receive additional resources, up to 50 percent of their annual TANF allocation, over the course of 2009 and 2010. The TANF Emergency Contingency Fund can be used to reimburse states for up to 80 percent of increased expenditures in the state TANF program due to more families requiring assistance because of the recession.
Eligible entities: State TANF agencies will receive these funds; contact your state agency for more information.
Eligible activities: States may be reimbursed for increased expenditures for providing services in the following three areas: 1) basic assistance (cash payments to low income families); 2) non-recurrent, short-term payments (e.g., up to four months of rental assistance for homeless families, security deposit and first month's rent, or utility assistance); 3) and subsidized employment. States can provide non-recurrent short term benefits either to families already receiving TANF payments in order to provide extra assistance to help them deal with a crisis or with a specific episode of need, or to those who are not receiving TANF cash payments.
