COVID-19: Updates & Resources

Latest COVID-19 News from CLPHA

10.5.21

San Diego's COVID-19 Housing Stability Assistance Program provides $103M in rent, utility relief (San Diego Housing Commission)

10.5.21

Researchers Find Landlords More Likely to Defer Maintenance and Offer Less Concessions in Marginalized Communities

10.5.21

National Survey on the Emergency Rental Assistance Program Highlights Its Challenges

The Housing Initiative at Penn, NYU Furman Center and National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) published a brief profiling results from an April 2021 survey of 64 Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) Programs. The brief focuses on key program design features, challenges and changes as ERA programs launched nationwide to support struggling renters during the pandemic. The national survey collected from program administrators, 69% of whom represented a government agency, indicated that “despite substantial changes since the earliest iterations of COVID-19 rental assistance programs, survey data indicate that many programs launched in early 2021 continued to implement documentation requirements that potentially exclude vulnerable households, did not offer a direct-to-tenant assistance, and failed to publicly make known opportunities for either direct-to-tenant assistance or self-attestation.”

The survey reported the following consistencies across national ERA programs:

Most programs required tenants to document their income (96%) and provide proof of COVID-19-related financial hardship (75%).
Staff capacity was one of the top challenges. Each respondent indicated that they added or expect to add staff capacity to run the ERA program. The most common strategies for increasing staff capacity included hiring temporary staff (88%), reassigning existing staff (67%), and partnering with community-based or nonprofit organizations for specific aspects of program administration (47%).
More than half (56%) of programs experienced challenges related to tenant responsiveness. Program administrators noted that it “often requires a lot of follow-up with tenants to obtain proper eligibility documentation [and] some never end up providing documents,” that “tenants are hard to reach or uncooperative in some cases,” and that some landlords complained their tenants were not coming forward to apply.

The brief concludes that while this report captured key characteristics of the earliest ERA programs, additional surveying is needed to elucidate how continuously evolving U.S. Treasury Department guidance shapes program design. Click here to review the full brief.

10.5.21

CFPB: Renter Households’ Financial Statuses More Sensitive to Public Policy Changes During the COVID-19 Pandemic

10.5.21

Research Shows Subsidized Households in NY and CA Experienced Lower Levels of Nonpayment of Rent Compared to Unsubsidized Households During the Pandemic

This month, two members of the Housing Crisis Research Center (HCRC) - Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley and the NYU Furman Center – released a comparative brief documenting the declines in rent payments and the increase in rental arrears among a set of affordable housing portfolios in California and New York. The goal of this brief was to measure the impact federal housing subsidies had throughout the pandemic on reducing instances of delayed or missed rental payments for households residing in affordable housing within these two markets. While there were differences in each state’s datum, there were several keyfindings that illustrate how rental subsidies were able to mitigate the effects of nonpayment of rent for affordable housing residents.

In both locations, the share of households missing a full rent payment in a given month increased after the economic shutdown in March 2020 and remained at high levels through 2020.

Both subsidized and unsubsidized households saw increases in nonpayment of rent after the onset of the pandemic, with unsubsidized households hit particularly hard in the California sample.

While both subsidized and unsubsidized households experienced marked increases in nonpayment rates during the pandemic, subsidized households accrued lower levels of rental arrears, as their tenant-charged rent is substantially lower than that of unsubsidized tenants.

Unsubsidized households without fixed incomes had the greatest increase in nonpayment rates and accrued higher levels of arrears during the pandemic..

The samples used for this study varied in terms of characteristics, with the New York data set covering three firms and 14,000 households, compared to the California set only using one firm and 8,500 households. Other differences include calculation of rent payment data (tenant portion of rent vs. combined tenant portion and subsidy), cumulative arrear data, share of households receiving subsidies (45% vs 56%), and the collection of demographic data.

You can locate the full report here.

9.22.21

Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority Wins Prestigious National Award for Service Excellence

From the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority’s press release:

An innovative collaboration launched last year between the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) and the Healthcare Collaborative of Greater Columbus (HCGC) is among only four organizations in the United States to receive 2021 NMA Housing Awards, regarded as one of the affordable housing industry’s premiere achievements that recognize the outstanding service excellence of individual agencies.

CMHA and HCGC were honored with the NMA Large Agency Resident Service Award, named after the founder and president of California-based Nan McKay and Associates (NMA). The award is given annually to leaders in the affordable housing industry nationally with more than 2,500 units in their agency portfolio and whose community outreach efforts improve the future of the residents and families they serve.

“This years’ service award recipients exemplify the best of the best at helping their communities’ most vulnerable citizens resolve unmet needs for transportation, food, education, job training, healthcare, housing and more,” NMA CEO John McKay said during a virtual celebration announcing the winners on Friday, Sept. 17.

“In a year when so many faced extraordinary challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, public housing authorities like CMHA and their affiliated partners such as HCGC stepped up to develop new ideas and build new partnerships while continuing to work toward the goals of providing safe, high quality and affordable housing for low-wage-earning households, people with disabilities and the elderly,” McKay said.

CMHA joined with nonprofit HCGC last year to help broaden support for the Central Ohio Pathways HUB (the HUB) that HCGC has managed since 2019 and to date serves approximately 600 individuals per month. HCGC’s HUB is a nationally certified program dedicated to supporting the emotional, economic, behavioral, social, learning and health outcomes of vulnerable populations in Franklin and surrounding counties.

Over the past year, the new CMHA-HCGC partnership contributed to the delivery of nearly 30,000 meals to the hungry, connected 650-plus youth with out-of-school programs, distributed over 1,600 COVID-19 wellness kits and provided almost $114,000 in emergency rental and utility assistance. The community health workers (CHWs) in the HUB aim to understand the root of why an individual needs assistance and provides them with the tools to address their challenges. CHWs then guide clients on a path to success, through improvement of their physical, mental and economic well-being. With over 75% of connections to care and services successfully completed in the program, CMHA residents are experiencing the lasting impact of participating in the HUB.

Read CMHA’s press release.

9.16.21

Summary: House Financial Services Committee Hearing on Reforms to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program

On September 10, 2021, the House Financial Services Committee (HFSC) held a virtual hearing entitled “Protecting Renters During the Pandemic: Reviewing Reforms to Expedite Emergency Rental Assistance.” After months of criticism from policymakers and housing advocates, and in the wake of the lifting of the CDC Eviction Moratorium, the Department of Treasury’s national Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) continues to fall short of expectations to distribute funds to renters in need. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) ERAP Dashboard, only $7.75 Billion of the original $25 Billion in ERA1 has been paid to households, and just 11% of the entire $46 Billion allocated to the program through ERA1 and ERA2.

Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) began her opening remarks outlining concerns over the slow distribution of funds, while also providing a brief overview of her newly introduced legislation “Expediting Assistance to Renters and Landlords Act of 2021”, which was recently voted on and approved by the HFSC. “This bill would allow landlords to apply directly for back rent they are owed, even if a renter is unresponsive, as long as the landlord provides notice and meets other conditions, including a requirement that tenants may not be evicted for at least 120 days — and that the landlords would be paid for those 120 days following the first request for assistance. The legislation would also require grantees receiving emergency rental assistance funds to accept self-attestations from tenants, and to provide funds directly to tenants when the landlord is unresponsive or refuses to participate.” The Chairwoman's legislation also recognizes that an issue facing many programs around the country has been outreach to eligible applicants, and that is why it seeks to provide funds to increase public awareness through mailings, radio, TV, and internet ads. The bill is slated for committee markup on September 13 along with other housing provisions expected to be included in the larger reconciliation bill of FY22.

Witnesses at the hearing included Kadeem Morris, Supervising Attorney at Community Legal Services, Inc.; Margaret Salazar, Executive Director of the Oregon Department of Housing and Community Development; David Schwartz, Chair of the National Multifamily Housing Council; Gilbert Winn, CEO of Winn Companies; and Diane Yentel, President and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. During her testimony, Diane Yentel, described her frustration with the program's application process, stating “While ERA helped nearly 1 million households through July, at least another 1.2 million submitted applications, but have yet to receive aid.” She went on to say that many program applicants have difficulties completing applications due to complex system layouts and burdensome documentation requirements, and that a lack of universal standards has hindered the program’s overall effectiveness.

In his opening statement, Ranking Member of the Committee, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) discussed his previously introduced legislation, the “Renter Protection Act”. This bill consolidates both ERA1 and ERA2 programs (with a mandate to spend down funds by a December 31, 2021 deadline), allows for the accepting of bulk applications submitted on behalf renter households by property owners, but aid would only be eligible to cover rental arrears, not other expenses, like utilities, moving costs, or legal services.

You can view a transcript of the Chairwoman’s opening statement here, and a recording of the hearing is available through this link.

9.9.21

CLPHA Works to Speed Emergency Rental Assistance Fund Distribution and Improve Emergency Housing Voucher Program

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