The state’s rental assistance program is getting a $30 million boost intended to serve people in its main workforce training program.

The money comes from the state’s allocation of federal COVID-19 relief funds.

Participants in the state CareerConneCT training program will be eligible for three to nine months of help, totaling up to $15,000 per household, if they make 80 percent of the area median income or less, Gov. Ned Lamont’s office announced last week. The money can’t be used to pay back rent, but will help people training for a new job supplement their income.

“There are employers throughout Connecticut right now who want to hire and are in need of workers trained with specific skills. We created CareerConneCT with the goal of helping jobseekers obtain the skills necessary to fill available job openings, which can lead to a long-lasting, good-paying career. Housing and workforce are a natural pairing, and making rental assistance stipends available as part of this job training program will remove some of the barriers that prevent people from fully participating in the workforce,” Lamont said in a statement.

CareerConneCT offers free, short-term training for jobs in the manufacturing, information technology, health care, infrastructure and clean energy and commercial driving sectors, among others.