Millions in rental assistance coming soon
Tenants, landlords will be able to apply within the next few weeks
Landlords and tenants won’t have to wait much longer for promised federal money to help pay past-due rent.
Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties are finalizing details of how they plan to dole out millions of dollars to help prevent the eviction of thousands of renters who fell behind on their payments because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The counties plan to begin accepting applications and making payments within the next few weeks.
A spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis, meanwhile, said the state will distribute $871 million through the Department of Children and Families instead of the 119 local governments that last year distributed $135 million in rent and mortgage assistance to more than 32,250 Florida households.
The money comes from the $25 billion
Emergency Rental Assistance Program approved by Congress and the president in December as part of a $900 billion COVID-19 relief package.
Combined, the three South Florida counties have $165 million to distribute to help with past-due and future rent. Miami and Hialeah have another $21 million to give away.
Louis Mata, spokesman for United Property Management, which oversees 9,000 units in South Florida, said he was encouraged that Broward, Palm Beach and Miami Dade counties plan to work directly with landlords as well as tenants most at risk of eviction.
“We’re waiting to see how the plans roll out, but recognizing landlords — who were asked on Day One to put evictions aside and given no guarantees (of reimbursement) — is a good thing,” he said.
Eviction moratoriums from various federal, state and local authorities have been in place since the pandemic hit the United States last March. That’s when government-ordered shutdowns of restaurants, bars, gyms, movie theaters, cruise lines, performing arts venues and non-essential retail stores left untold numbers of renters suddenly without incomes. And while many eviction moratoriums remain in place for failure to pay rent, some counties, including Broward, have resumed processing evictions for non-financial reasons, including expiration of leases.
What you’ll need to do
To be eligible for assistance, federal rules require tenants to prove that their household income is 80% or below the median household income for their area. Households with incomes below 50% of their area’s median incomes and households with an individual unemployed for 90 days prior to applying will get priority.
Applicants also will have to prove that one or more household members qualified for unemployment or experienced a reduction in income, incurred significant costs or experienced a financial hardship due to the pandemic. Finally, they will have to show that they are at risk of homelessness or housing instability.
Applicants also can qualify for assistance if they can prove the pandemic caused a loss of income because they had to stay at home due to sickness, quarantine or to care for children or other high-risk individuals.
Documents required to qualify have not yet been identified. But based on what was required for housing assistance money last year, applicants might be required to produce government ID cards, pay stubs, bank statements, copies of tax statements, past-due utility bills, notices of pastdue rent or pending evictions, lease agreements, unemployment claim benefit letters or letters from employers verifying job or income losses.
Palm Beach County
Palm Beach County is currently accepting applications for rent and utility assistance through its website and plans to start approving requests after the county commission formally endorses the plan on March 9, said Taruna Malhotra, assistant director of that county’s community services department.
The county, which received $45.2 million, is also working on a plan for landlords to be able to apply directly on behalf of their tenants. However, “they must have written authorization from the tenants and the tenant must meet all other requirements,” she said.
Broward County
Broward officials say they hope the new pot of money will entice landlords into allowing tenants with expiring leases to stay in their homes.
The county, which has $59 million to distribute, plans to make the money available in two ways:
Applicants who have not been formally served with eviction notices will be able to apply for assistance on their own through an online portal.
Renters who have been served with eviction notices will be invited with their landlords to participate in a county court mediation session. Landlords who agree to extend renters’ leases will receive up to 75% of the most recent months of past-due rent and 60% of rent owed for prior months up to a year. Those landlords, however, must agree not to pursue the balance of the past-due rent and to extend their tenants’ leases.
Chief Circuit Judge Jack Tuter said he expects hundreds of mediation cases to take place in the coming weeks. The Legal Aid Service of Broward County will provide attorneys for tenants who cannot afford to hire one. County workers will help tenants gather and submit documentation of their financial hardship. Tenants will be automatically invited to a mediation hearing if they receive an eviction case summons and file a response seeking to contest it, Tuter said.
Although more than 2,700 eviction cases were pending in the court system in December, many of them have already been resolved because the tenant moved or the landlords never formally served notice to the tenants, he said. Cases remain frozen for tenants who submitted letters to the court or their landlord affirming they suffered a pandemic-related financial hardship, as required under a moratorium ordered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Tenants will be asked to submit their documentation establishing their eligibility prior to attending mediation hearings so payments can be in landlords’ hands about 10 days after their hearings, Tuter said.
Broward County Mayor Steve Geller said the program should be in operation in about two weeks.
Miami-Dade County
As it begins to distribute its $60 million, Miami Dade County will prioritize tenants on the verge of being kicked out of their homes.
County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said during a news conference Feb. 8 that of 6,000 to 7,000 pending eviction cases, nearly 1,700 await a judge’s signature on what’s called a writ of possession — the final authorization for police to go to a home and physically remove tenants if necessary to enable the landlord to reclaim the property.
But execution of those writs have been prohibited under a moratorium originally declared by former Mayor Carlos Gimenez last March and extended by Cava after she took office last November.
County officials plan to offer full repayment of rent past due since March, up to $3,000 a month, to landlords with pending writs of possession who agree to allow their tenants to remain in their homes.
State of Florida
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office tapped the Department of Children and Families to distribute $871 million allocated for the entire state rather than rely on the 119 city and county governments that processed $135 million in rent and mortgage assistance payments last year.
In Broward alone, the aid was distributed through the county and 13 separate cities that were already set up to provide low-income housing assistance grants. The pandemic relief program was slow to get underway, however. Even though the funds were approved in March, the state didn’t announce how it would be distributed until late June. Training local government workers took another month or so.
Only $47 million was reported spent by Dec. 1, according to an activity report by the Florida Housing Finance Corp., which oversaw the distribution. A flurry of activity followed in December and January, and all of the funds have since been distributed, an official said.
Cody McCloud, press secretary for DeSantis’ office, said DCF was selected because, as a single entity, it can get the money out faster.
However, the department is behind Broward, Palm Beach and Miami Dade counties in preparing to distribute funds. DCF spokeswoman Da Monica Smith said DCF has started preparing to reach out to outside companies who will be contracted to develop applications, verify eligibility, provide customer support and publicize availability of the money.
Da Monica did not immediately respond when asked whether the state will allow tenants to apply through DCF if they live in a county, such as Broward, Palm Beach or Miami-Dade, that obtained its own funding. Only cities or counties with 200,000 or more people were eligible to secure funds directly through the U.S. Treasury Department.
The key to achieving the goal of preventing evictions and increased homelessness, Mata said, will be making it as easy as possible for tenants to secure the necessary documents to qualify for help. His employer, United Property Management, plans to help its past-due tenants gather the their documents and will begin notifying them as soon as requirements are set.
He warned tenants not to ignore the opportunity. “Don’t ignore the notices we post on your door,” he said. “This is time sensitive. Communication is key.”