Rent aid program shifted to state
Move by City Council will enable residents to resume applying for pandemic assistance Wednesday
Los Angeles residents hit hard financially by the coronavirus pandemic will be able to apply for emergency rent assistance again, starting Sept. 1, after the City Council signed off Wednesday on a plan to hand over the operation of the city’s program to the state.
The city stopped accepting applications on April 30, leaving many eligible tenants and landlords unable to apply for rent relief.
City officials issued an announcement, following the vote, saying residents will need to go to the website, HousingIsKey .com, starting at 7 a.m. on Sept. 1 to begin filling out the application.
An additional $260 million from the state and federal government is being made available as part of a second phase of the aid program that launched in April. The reopening of the application process will also allow Los Angeles residents to take advantage of a state law that allows them to show documentation of their pending applications to judges to stave off eviction.
Demand has been high for the aid, which is aimed at low-income households to cover back rent that could not be paid because of lost work, illness and other challenges brought on by the pandemic.
For the first phase of the program, during which applications were accepted over the span of a few weeks, the city’s housing department received 77,000 eligible applications, Housing Department General Manager Ann Sewill said at Wednesday’s council meeting. The initial $235 million that was available can only cover the rental assistance needs of about 19,000 lowincome Angelenos.
The initial $235 million that was available can only cover the rental assistance needs of about 17,000 lowincome Angelenos, of which 4,000 received money, Sewill added. The city also was challenged by delays in issuing the funds, releasing $68 million of that initial amount more than three months after the application period closed.
One Los Angeles city councilman took aim at the city’s operation of the program earlier this month, saying not enough was being done to quickly issue the aid, assist applicants and reopen the application period.
Handing over administration of the program to the state could also allow for more funding to be diverted to Los Angeles residents from other jurisdictions, city and state officials said. The demand for rental assistance “vastly exceeds” the amounts now allocated to the city, which has an estimated shortfall of around $450 million, city officials said in a report last week.
State officials expect to find more money for L.A. rent relief by reallocating unused funds from California jurisdictions that aren’t using their full allotment, said Russ Heimerich, spokesman for the state Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency. In addition, the U.S. Treasury Department will make similar state-to-state reallocations, possibly increasing rent relief dollars for California.
“It’s too soon to tell” if the state will have enough resources to cover all the rent relief aid sought in Los Angeles, Heimerich said, but it’s likely it will.
“We share the city of Los Angeles’ goal to ensure that every eligible renter needing rental assistance gets help quickly,” added Lourdes Castro Ramírez, secretary of the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency. “We are prepared to build on the strong partnership with the city to get rent and utility assistance into the hands of Angelenos most in need during these perilous times.”
The aid in the first phase of Los Angeles’ rental assistance program was only available to households earning 50% of the area median income, or which are very low or extremely lowincome. With the state taking over the program, the second phase widens the pool to households earning 80% of the area median income, potentially driving up demand for the aid. State figures show 87.5% of California’s rent relief applicants earn 50% or less than their area median income.
The move to have the state handle the program will also reduce confusion, officials said. Los Angeles is just one of 22 California municipalities that chose to run its own program, separate from the state. L.A. County, for example, opted to have the state process the claims for aid allocated there, and residents in that jurisdiction applied for the program via the state’s website.
Meanwhile, city leaders also signed off on hiring additional caseworkers to complete the processing on the first phase, and the state will be accepting applications from Angelenos on another $260 million in aid.
Los Angeles joined two other California jurisdictions — the city of Irvine and San Joaquin County — that are switching to the state after running their own rent relief programs, Heimerich said. At least three other jurisdictions with hybrid state-local programs — Orange and Merced counties and the city of Santa Clarita — have switched to state-only programs.
The state now is handling rent relief applications for all of L.A. County except for the city of Long Beach.
Tenants and landlords can apply through the state’s portal, HousingIsKey.com. Residents can also call the appointment call center at 833-687-0967 if they need help filling out an application. Renters who have already applied to the City’s program will be provided with detailed instructions on next steps.
More information is available at hcidla.lacity .org.