The Fayetteville City Manager announced at last week’s City Council meeting that the money for the emergency rental assistance program have been used as of Oct. 7. The city did not plan for that money to be fully used until December.

“I am asking you to recharge that pot of money with an additional two million dollars in what we call an ERAP 2.1,” City Manager Doug Hewitt told the council. “Once that money is in the pipeline, that additional two million dollars. then we'll go back to the federal government and ask for an additional three billion dollars to be able to draw down to recharge that for a total of over 10 or 11 million dollars that we hope to be able to provide to our residents in Cumberland County.”

However, many people voiced concerns that even though they were awarded money, they have not received it. Hewitt told the council that the average time to distribute money after it has been awarded is around 3 weeks, but they need more staff to help cut down those costs.

City Council unanimously approved to request a little more than 2 million dollars from the U.S. Department of the Treasury as well as allocate $280,000 to Innovative Emergency Management Inc. to hire more staff to reduce the wait times and issues that people have been having.