Minnesota Minnesota

MFIP Employment Services Manual

MFIP Employment Services Manual


19.15 Vendoring Benefits

ISSUE DATE: 09/2020

Vendoring means to directly pay the housing costs of participants.

  • · Housing costs always include rent or mortgage payments.
  • · Counties have the option to also vendor pay utility costs.

    • When vendoring is used:

  • · For participants with 30% sanctions.
  • · For any month a person with a drug felony receives MFIP assistance.
  • · For 6 months after a participant with a 30% sanction comes into compliance.

    • The process the eligibility worker uses:

    1. Uses the cash portion the participant is receiving to vendor the housing payments.

  • · The vendor payment will not be for any more than the cash portion the participant is receiving. (In many cases the cash portion is less than the rent).

    • 2. Calculates a 30% reduction of the full maximum benefits for a household of the same size.

    3. Reduces the benefits remaining after paying the rent by the amount calculated in Step 2. This could result in reducing the food portion.

    Counties or tribes administering MFIP must stop these payments if they become aware that the housing unit is uninhabitable.

  • · The payments do not resume until the landlord demonstrates that the housing is fit for use.
  • · Landlords cannot initiate evictions because the vendor payments were stopped in response to uninhabitable condition of the housing.

    • Participants without housing costs or staying somewhere they are not on the lease are not subject to vendoring.

    If there are questions about a participant’s sanction, contact the eligibility worker.

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