Oregon Housing and Community Services published a temporary administrative rule order amending the Low-Income Housing Water Assistance Program through Jan. 8, 2023, effective immediately. The rule increases the ceiling for payments from $2,000 to $6,000. By increasing the ceiling to $6,000, it provides the subgrantees with the autonomy to create payments for households with very high arrearages. For arrears higher than this, OHCS will still require subgrantees to request override approval. Without allowing this rule change to occur immediately, the administrative burden for subgrantees, as well as OHCS, would increase multiple times over. This would deallocate the time and funding available to serve eligible households. This will also enable OHCS to obtain a better idea of the populations with the greatest arrearages so we can better address their specific needs.