$5M loan to aid rental nonprofit during wait
Warns of rising threat of domestic extremism
A philanthropic organization is working with a credit union to front millions of dollars to a Detroit housing agency as it waits for the Legislature and governor to agree on how to administer emergency COVID-19 federal aid, including hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked to help renters pay back rent and avoid eviction.
Lake Trust Credit Union in Brighton is providing the Detroit-based United Community Housing Coalition with a $5 million loan and Troy-based Kresge Foundation has issued a $4.5 million guarantee on the loan. The loan is intended to give the nonprofit an additional funding source to help tenants in need while the legislative process in Lansing unfolds, said Aaron Seybert, managing director of social investment practice at Kresge.
“We can’t wait for this haggling to happen so we are stepping in to create this credit facility, so that (UCHC) can draw down money from the credit union so they can start working with families today, and start putting this money out the door while the political process works its way out,” Seybert said.
For weeks, Republicans in the House and Senate each had their own proposals for incrementally doling out federal aid. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has proposed her own plan and called for a full rollout of federal aid.
A GOP’s compromise bill that passed the state Senate on Tuesday allocates $220 million of more than $600 million in federal rent and utility aid. The Legislature must allocate the money through legislation signed by the governor before it can be distributed to housing agencies across the state.
Meanwhile, a federal moratorium on evictions is slated to expire at the end of the month. Leaders of housing nonprofits have said they’re scrambling to put together funds to help renters in need after the last round of federal dollars was exhausted.
Ted Phillips, executive director of UCHC, said the line of credit provides dollars for the nonprofit to fall back on as the organization waits for the start of a new federal rent aid program.
“If there’s delays in reimbursement and things of that nature and we have to stop until we get money from the government, then that’s going to be a big problem,” Phillips said. “So this should enable us to just continue on with a seamless flow . ... This is huge, and we’re so grateful that they’ve guaranteed the loan to enable us to be able to get it if needed.”
In mid-February, Phillips estimated a backlog of 2,000 renters in Detroit who are waiting for help. Phillips on Tuesday said the backlog of tenants in need is growing.
“We’ll be able to pay more timely on the rental payments and be better able to spend all the money,” he said.
The state has to distribute 65% of federal rental funds by Sept. 30 or the federal government can claw it back.
Seybert said Kresge Foundation is doing “a little bit of Band-Aiding,” but that policy makers must consider what it takes for nonprofits to implement programs to reach vulnerable people.
“We as a city, as a region are very very reliant on the nonprofit sector to deliver these essential goods and services, particularly to low-income families,” Seybert said. “And very often, they’re not given the tools or the resources needed to distribute them effectively, and then we wonder why low-income people suffer so badly.”
United Community Housing Coalition also got another boost this week with $14,000 from Rent Party Detroit, an organization raising money to prevent evictions through virtual fundraising events.
More than 150 people donated to the group’s efforts, which will go toward helping people who face eviction, homelessness or are living in an unsafe environment.
Phillips said funds from Rent Party Detroit are welcome, especially for individuals who don’t normally qualify for most federal COVID-19 rental aid, such as land contract homeowners.
FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday described an ominous warning the night before the Capitol riots about the prospect of extreme violence as “raw, unverified, uncorroborated information” – but he said the bureau’s report was shared extensively with Capitol Police and other authorities.
Wray said the report, which concluded that extremists were “preparing for war,” was provided to authorities at the command level, distributed to its local Joint Terrorism Task Force network and posted on a national electronic portal for review by law enforcement authorisaid, ties across the country.
The FBI director’s testimony before a Senate panel comes nearly a week after former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund told a separate Senate committee that the intelligence never made it to him and others before the attack that left five dead, including Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick.
Sund acknowledged that the bulletin landed at the Capitol police agency’s intelligence unit but said it was never forwarded.
Though Wray told lawmakers Tuesday that he did not become aware of the report’s existence until “some number of days” after Jan. 6, he said the contents of the advisory were important enough for the FBI to distribute it across law enforcement the way they did at the time.
“Because of the level of detail that was in it, the judgment was, given the press of time, given the specificity ... was to push it to the people who needed it,” he said.
Pressed by lawmakers on why the information had not been seen by either the former Capitol chief, who resigned shortly after the attack, or the acting District of Columbia police chief, Wray said: “I don’t have a good answer.”
“It was more than just an email,” the director adding that at least five Capitol police officers who also serve as members of a Capitolarea terrorism task force would have received it.
In addition to the report’s placement on an electronic portal, Wray said, the information was included in a “verbal” briefing for law enforcement officials at a local command center.
But Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., citing the volume of threat-related information circulating across social media in the days before Jan. 6, suggested the FBI should have called more urgent attention to the risk.
“Why didn’t you sound the alarm in a more visible and ringing way?” Blumenthal asked.
The director said he had warned repeatedly of the mounting domestic threat in recent years and again defended the bureau’s handling of the threat report distributed the night before the attack.