Bears said she applied for rental assistance multiple times this spring but never heard back.

Are you a renter or landlord impacted by federal or local eviction moratoriums.

The expiration of the federal moratorium, following a last-ditch effort by congressional Democrats to revive it that is expected to fail, will leave renters with few pandemic-era protections as courts begin processing steep backlogs of eviction cases.

That has magnified criticism of the sluggish Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which some advocates say was flawed from the get-go because it relies on state and local governments across the country to create and administer their own programs.

Six months after the aid program was approved by President Donald Trump in December, just 12 percent of the first $25 billion in funds had reached people in need due to loss of income from the pandemic, according to the Treasury Department.

Overall just 36 out of more than 400 states, counties and cities reporting data to the Treasury Department were able to spend half of the money allotted them by the end of June.

That included New York state — recipient of $801 million in first-round funds — plus huge metropolitan governments, according to an analysis of Treasury data by The Post.

“When the Administration arrived, we knew that this would be an enormous challenge and that the systems were not in place at the state and local level to deliver assistance at this unprecedented scale,” said Treasury spokeswoman Elizabeth Bourgeois, in a statement.

The good news, Zandi said, is that the estimated amount of unpaid rent in America had fallen from $44.1 billion in December to $27.5 billion in June.

He receives disability payments, and his wife had a job as a department store clerk, but he said it has not been enough to cover the rent.

He said he avoids thinking about what would happen if New York state can’t ultimately provide him and his wife with funds to make up their thousands of dollars in unpaid rent.

The New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance issued a statement from spokesman Anthony Farmer saying the program “has already received more than 100,000 applications and upwards of 7,000 calls a day are being handled with virtually no wait time.”.

“The places that I think we will be impacted the most will be where they enforced the moratorium well but didn’t get rental assistance out quickly,” said Daryl Fairweather, the chief economist of Redfin, the housing company.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, called for the Biden administration to extend the federal moratorium.

Treasury officials say the first $25 billion in funds was provided to grantees in February, but unlike federally administered pandemic responses, such as the Paycheck Protection Program, Congress designed the Emergency Rental Assistance program to allow governors, state legislatures, mayors and county councils to create and administer their own programs.

But that came after its program stumbled out of the gate, requiring the state Department of Housing and Community Affairs to switch software systems and hire additional contractors to right the ship.

Bobby Wilkinson, the agency’s executive director, said his team found success by encouraging landlords to participate in the program.

The way to make yourself whole is to participate in our program,'" Wilkinson said