Rental assistance subsidies have appeared in previous relief bills and now there's some additional dollars in the $1.9 trillion stimulus package being debated in Washington. A number of states have struggled getting that money out - only about 21 states have really made a dent in the distribution of these dollars for a number of reasons. Newell invited Housing NOLA Executive Director Andreanecia Morris onto the program Thursday afternoon to explain.
“So these dollars have been set aside but there's been a number of problems around the country,” Newell began. “What has been the experience here in trying to implement a program in order to distribute those funds?”
“There've been a number of, uh, ways that we've been working on this,” Morris said. “We were really excited about the fact that at the end of the year, there was $25 billion made available across the country and that meant over $300 million going to New Orleans. That was a massive investment. It's about a third of what we need to stabilize people, but it was a good down payment, a good first start. Unfortunately there have been some challenges with how the programs are being rolled out, some inconsistencies to say the least. For example, Jefferson Parish has almost $30 million. They've hired HDI, which is one of the contractors that manage the Road Home program. They rolled out their program on Monday, but they're not following the standards that we've been talking about, which is giving people the chance to pay up to 12 months in back rent. The federal guidelines allow for that. So if you've got a landlord who understands that their tenant lost their job, the tenant had some unemployment coming in, they had some stimulus payment, they've been making some payments, with the eviction moratorium, they can't evict them - and now there's this opportunity for them to be made whole. Jefferson Parish is limiting it at 6 months as opposed to 7 months or 8 months or even 12 months for some people, when the federal guidelines let them go back as far as 12 months.”
“What is the issue there? I mean, is it just that they're trying to provide assistance to just more folks with the limited dollars that they have?” Newell asked.
“We think that that's what the rationale is,” Morris said. “We've reached out to the parish offices and we're waiting to hear back from them. We've done a great deal of analysis and this is about a third of the money that's needed. We know that there's not enough money. And so we think what is necessary is that we help as many people as possible, truly help them really stabilize the person in front of you, instead of stretching the money out and spreading it out and not helping enough people. If you don't make the landlord whole, the landlord could move to evict because they're going to say, ‘well, I'm never going to get my money.’ And that's really bad timing, particularly since we know we have a second round of money coming to help.”
“You have a second round of money coming, but also an extension on the eviction moratorium in the American Rescue Plan, right?”
“If that passes, it should be extended to September,” Morris confirmed. “Everything hasn't passed yet, but we know that there's definitely going to be additional funding. The eviction moratorium has been challenged several times. And last weekend that challenge was successful in Texas. The federal government responded and said that they're going to appeal. We don't have a guarantee that the eviction moratorium is going to be able to be extended till September.”
Hear the entire interview in the audio player below.
