Jill McCormick shook her head and lifted her eyes to the ceiling.

“What is the hold up for getting that money directly to [tenants]?” McCormick, a tenant advocate with the nonprofit Action St. Louis, asked St. Louis’ new director of human services, Yusef Scoggin, at a community meeting Tuesday.

The city has received more applications for rental and utility assistance than it can fund, Scoggin said, and is struggling with a four- to six-week turnaround on those applications. Meanwhile, in St. Louis County the turnaround time is only about eight to 10 days.

And compared to the city, which has spent 57% of the rental assistance money it’s received from federal COVID relief legislation, the county has spent 71%, as of Sept. 30.

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If Missouri doesn’t spend its federal rental and utility assistance money it could lose it