County upgrades rental assistance program
In the wake of criticism, the Housing Authority of the County of Kern is adjusting the way it distributes millions of dollars for rental and utility assistance.
At a Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, the Housing Authority debuted an improved system the organization says will help distribute more resources to local renters faster.
“As always, we are committed to running the most efficient program that we can,” Housing Authority Assistant Director Heather Kimmel told supervisors on Tuesday. “We’re committed to getting this money out quickly to the people in our community who need it, and we are always open and thankful for comments, feedback and suggestions from the community about how we might do that better.”
Over the past few months, the Housing Authority’s Emergency Rent and Utility Assistance Program has been criticized by some community groups for slow processing times and confusing applications. The criticism arose after the state eviction moratorium lifted on Oct. 1, exposing millions of renters to the possibility of losing their home for failure to pay rent for the first time in more than a year.
The Housing Authority received $85.9 million in state and federal funds to alleviate the debts of tenants who could not make rent and utility payments due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, when some local renters applied for the funds, they had difficulty accessing aid for which they believed they were eligible.
“I sent an application with every piece of information on every page. It was all stapled together. I went above and beyond to make
sure it was totally perfect,” said Christina Dematteis, a 32-yearold Bakersfield resident who earned a living by cleaning homes and diesel trucks before COVID-19 quarantines forced her to lose work for about a year.
She said she applied for the Housing Authority’s rental program in July and was initially approved for assistance, but the approval was rescinded for reasons she still does not understand.
“I read the instructions, did exactly what I needed to do,” she said. “I don’t know what their problem was. I still can’t figure out what I could have done wrong.”
She says she owes around $5,000 in back-rent, and if not for an understanding landlord, could be eligible for eviction. Her work has begun to pick up again, and she says has given up on the Housing Authority’s program.
“I’m back with a year of my bills not being paid,” she said. “It’s hard, but I’m getting back to where I can pay them on time, but I still have a year to catch up on. So it’s definitely hard.”
The county’s emergency rental assistance program is meant to help residents like Dematteis who fell behind on rent and utility bills during the pandemic. Tenants who earn less than 80 percent of the area median income — $55,900 for a Kern County family of four — who also experienced hardship due to the pandemic qualify for the assistance.
So far, the Housing Authority has distributed $21 million in direct payments to roughly 3,300 households, which equates to an average of $6,241 per payment. A portion of the finding has already been set aside for applications that are in the process of being reviewed.
But the Housing Authority is still receiving around 300 applications per day, evidence of the popularity of the program.
“It’s a monumental undertaking, and I think the folks in the room clearly understood that,” Chief Administrative Officer Ryan Alsop said on Tuesday, referring to a meeting the county hosted with community groups last week to address issues with the system. “With such a heavy lift, you run into little deficit patches here and there, things you want to tune up. And I think in that kind of an environment, if you are not a quick-change artist, and have that kind of flexibility and mobility to be a quick-change artist, then you run into problems.”
One of the biggest issues identified during the meeting was the denial of applications due to missing documents. Some renters have reported being confused by the applications, and may not know which documents to submit. To speed up the process, and eliminate the back-and-forth that ensues when Housing Authority specialists attempt to reach out to tenants for the documents, the Housing Authority will now contract with 11 community groups to assist the public in the application process.
“They have a more direct connection with this tenant than we do,” Kimmel said. “And when they have them right in front of their organization, and they are working with them, they can collect everything that’s needed, log into the portal as the tenant representative and submit the completed application to us. The only work we have to do is to try and verify the landlord. So that will significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to process an application.”
Currently, the Housing Authority’s goal is to process the application within 28 days of the submission. The Housing Authority plans to hold events throughout the county to facilitate onsite applications, and enlist Community Action Partnership of Kern to spread awareness of the program.