Landlord Rent Relief May Be Coming!!!

With California's eviction ban due to end in just over one month, the state has been slow to get rental assistance money into the hands of landlords, possibly leaving thousands of renters at risk of eviction unless the ban is extended a survey of tenants advocates found.

A report released May 19th, says less than 1% of federal rent relief has been disbursed in California so far and that tenants and landlords face numerous barriers in the application process.

State housing officials plan to announce several revisions to speed up assistance disbursement and streamline the application process, a spokesman for the Housing and Community Development Department said.

"The amount paid weekly is going to start increasing exponentially," said Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the state Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency, which oversees the state housing department. "

California is getting $2.6 billion from the federal stimulus bill passed in December and an additional $2.2 billion from the American Rescue Plan.

State housing officials began receiving applications in mid-March to help tenants by paying enough rental assistance to stave off evictions through June.

Under the state program, tenants who pay 25% of their rent are protected from eviction.

The rent relief program pays 80% of the back rent owed by low-income tenants in the state if their landlord agrees to waive the rest.

If the landlord disagrees, then tenants can get 25% of the amount they owe in back rent.

Gov. Newsom unveiled plans this month to boost rental assistance to $5.2 billion, with the goal of paying 100% of back rent. If they're approved, landlords would not be required to waive 20% of their tenants' back rent.

Newsom also proposed spending $2 billion more to help tenants pay off utility bills.

So far, Californians have applied for $473 million in rental assistance, Heimerich said, with $20 million paid and $122.6 million more close to being paid.

Based on a survey of 177 tenant rights advocates assisting renters with their applications, the tenant's rights report noted that 700,000 California households are behind on rent, and the state's eviction moratorium is set to expire June 30th.

"California faces an eviction epidemic," the report said. "Legislators have just one month to fix SB 91, the law governing eviction protections and rent relief."

In addition to difficulty accessing the state's web portal to submit applications, tenants face technological and language barriers to applying, difficulty documenting their income losses, or difficulty communicating with their landlords, the report said.

Heimerich, the state housing spokesman, said planned revisions would streamline the application process by allowing "attestations" instead of submitting documents like pay stubs and income tax returns.

He added that the state website is being translated into six languages.

"We've been asking for a fair amount of documentation. We're going to start moving away from that and moving to attestations. In other words, you attest you have a COVID hardship" rather than providing documents confirming that, he said.

"We're streamlining applications. It should be a much easier bar for them to cross." Heimerich explained that the state had been verifying every payment to determine if the program is working properly and protect against fraud.

Now that the program appears to be running smoothly, state officials will switch to spot-checking payments, rapidly increasing the pace of disbursements.

Rental assistance programs administered by cities and counties — communities with at least 200,000 residents— are just starting to make payments, so locally administered disbursements should also speed up.

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