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Tennessee Housing Development Agency 2025 LIHEAP Policy Manual for Regular and Crisis Assistance 20

Crisis and Regular Assistance applications must be continuously accepted throughout the contract period. Agencies are required to offer Crisis funding to all qualified applicants up to March 15, as long as there are remaining funds available. Applicants who do not qualify for Crisis assistance must be given the option to apply for Regular LIHEAP assistance, regardless of the availability of funds. Applications for Regular LIHEAP assistance must be processed “In a timely manner" generally meaning as quickly as it is reasonable and appropriate for the situation, without undue delay. Emphasis on completing a task or fulfilling an obligation as promptly as possible, given the specific context and circumstances. Subgrantees are required to approve, deny, or add applicants to the waitlist, and notify customers of their status through a digital correspondence generated by the SmartSimple system within thirty (30) business days from the intake month. For more details, see Section 2.11 regarding the early application process for vulnerable populations. Benefit payments must be made to the vendor within 90 calendar days from the date of vendor verification. If the vendor hasn’t verified the payment list within 5 business days the agency must follow up with the vendor, so benefits are not delayed. The subgrantee will pull an approved applicants report and send out Approval/Denial correspondence generated within the SmartSimple system. Pending application correspondence will also be generated by SmartSimple. The household will be notified by email or log into SmartSimple to check on the status of their application. Applicants submitting an incomplete application will receive a pending verification correspondence and will have 15 business days to provide the missing information. All LIHEAP application data, including incomplete or denied applications, must be entered into the SmartSimple system with the date received. If the applicant does not submit the required information within 15 business days, the case status will be changed to "denied," and the applicant will need to reapply for assistance. At the agency's discretion, a denied applicant's status can be changed to “pending and add notes in the file why the status was changed to pending within the SmartSimple system, provided the application can still be completed. Both subgrantees and THDA LIHEAP staff will generate and utilize reports to track compliance with timeframes and ensure consistency in the application process. THDA Compliance and Asset Management department will monitor all local agencies for compliance to ensure that Crisis and Regular assistance policies are being correctly implemented.