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“It’s a race against time,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
In June, more than $ 1.5 billion in aid was provided to 290,000 eligible households, according to the US Treasury Department, more money than was distributed from January to May. The number of households that received assistance is up from 160,000 in May and 100,000 in April. But the rollout has been uneven, Yentel said.
“The pace of getting emergency rental assistance to tenants and landlords in some states and cities is unacceptably and inexcusably slow,” she said. “I can say with certainty that the help will not reach all tenants who need it before the moratorium on evictions expires.”
Who will get rent relief on time
With no national infrastructure for rent relief before the pandemic, the United States had a patchwork distribution process that placed enormous administrative burdens on states, cities and towns. This has hampered efforts to get cash quickly to those in need. But the rent assistance program is reaching more people now than it was at the start of the year.
“We expect this trend to continue,” Noel Andrés Poyo, assistant assistant secretary for community and economic development at the US Treasury Department, said at a White House meeting on eviction prevention on Wednesday. “We still have a lot of work to do, but we are encouraged that the data is proving that this responsive policymaking is working.”
Even with the deadline for the eviction ban nearing the end of July, he said troubled tenants should know that help is still available.
“Money is flowing. There’s more out there. Come in. Let’s make it work,” he said.
Rapid and continued expansion is needed to reach the number of tenants facing eviction, Yentel said, as well as to reduce administrative hurdles for applicants.
Although emergency rental assistance is available in every state, the pace of distribution has varied.
Some places like Illinois, Oregon and California got off to a slow start, she said, but have since ramped up. Illinois, for example, went from stating that it had given no assistance in May to being the second provider of rental assistance in June, according to the Treasury.
Texas distributed about 50% of its relief funds, while states like Arizona, Colorado and Rhode Island distributed less than 5%, according to the NLIHC tracking.
But in Arizona, some areas have received a lot more money. Phoenix distributed about 40% of its funds, while Pima County distributed more than 60% of its money, according to NLIHC.
“Since the start of the pandemic, there has been no holistic response to keeping tenants in stable housing and it is no different now,” Yentel said. “It continues to be a patchwork of protections for tenants.”
In some places tenants will receive emergency rent assistance on time, while in other places additional protections may be in place, such as preventing evictions of those who are applying for rent relief. , she said.
“But, in many places, neither will happen,” she said. “It is completely unfair and unfair that whether a family stays housed or not depends on where they live.”
As the eviction moratorium nears expiration, the need to distribute rent assistance is greater than ever, said Jeffrey M. Hearne, director of litigation at Legal Services of Greater Miami.
“We are very worried about this deadline,” he said. “Evictions have taken place, there are loopholes, but we know [the moratorium] helps protect our customers. “
The best scenario for tenants who risk losing their homes once the moratorium expires, he said, is that they will continue to be able to access rent assistance and landlords will be willing to take it.
But this will not be the case for many tenants in difficulty. “We are very concerned that there will be a lot of homeless people during the month of August.”
Expulsion from ramps and detours
Some communities are creating eviction diversion programs, which involve landlord and tenant mediation before evictions can take place.
Philadelphia set up a mediation program last August. A judge will not hear a case if the owner cannot prove that he went through mediation first. Idaho is rolling out a similar program where the tenant and landlord can negotiate a deal through an online portal that can save them from having to go to court.
These types of programs not only keep parties out of court – avoiding the black mark of an eviction case for the tenant and reducing court costs for everyone – but also encourage reluctant tenants or landlords or oblivious to help taking the rent. relief and keep tenants in place.
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