Treasury Dept. Allocates Final $1 Billion to States Under Hardest Hit Fund

The Treasury Department allocated the final $1 billion in the Hardest Hit Fund to 12 states and the District of Columbia.

Michigan, California and Illinois received the most HHF funding in this latest round of disbursements, according to the Treasury Department.

The states that received this round of funding qualified to receive the funds through a competitive application process in which state housing finance agencies (HFAs) were required to demonstrate an ongoing need for more funding to prevent foreclosures and stabilize housing markets. The HFAs were also required to submit a plan of action to address their ongoing needs by utilizing the funding by the end of 2020.

The HHF allocation announced on Tuesday is the second phase of the $2 billion in additional HHF funding Congress authorized under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016. In the first phase, $1 billion was allocated to 18 of the 19 participating HHF states according to a state’s population and according to how states have utilized their HHF funds. The first phase was announced on February 19.

The $2 billion in additional funding for HHF under the Consolidated Appropriations Act is the fifth round of HHF funding altogether. The Hardest Hit Fund was created in 2010 under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to provide $7.6 billion in targeted aid to 18 states and the District of Columbia which were deemed to have been hit hardest by the financial crisis. The total HHF allocation is now $9.6 billion, and the program and assisted almost a quarter of a million homeowners removing more than 9,00 blighted properties.

In the Phase 2 Allocation California received $169.8 million. California has received a total of $2,358,593,320 since the inception of the program.