States struggle to get rent relief to tenants amid pandemic
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last July that New York would spend $100 million in federal coronavirus relief to help cash-strapped tenants pay months of back rent and avert evictions.
By the end of October, the state had doled out only about $40 million, reaching 15,000 of the nearly 100,000 people looking for help. More than 57,000 applicants were denied because of criteria set by lawmakers that many said was difficult to meet.
New York’s experience played out nationwide, with states failing to spend tens of millions of federal dollars aimed at helping renters avoid eviction. Burdensome requirements, poorly administered programs and landlords refusing to cooperate meant tens of thousands of tenants never got assistance. Some states also shifted funding away from rental relief, fearing they’d miss a year-end mandate to spend the money — a deadline that got extended.
The problem, housing advocates said, was that the federal government didn’t specifically earmark any of the coronavirus aid for rental relief, leaving states scrambling to set up programs with no guidance on how the money should be allocated. As much as $3.43 billion in federal aid was spent on rental assistance, according to National Low Income Housing Coalition. But advocates said more should have been done, given tenants faced as much as $34 billion in unpaid rent through January, according to a report released by the National Council of State Housing Agencies.
States’ rental relief programs “were a very mixed success. It was sort of a patchwork of programs,” Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen said in February. “There was a lot of experimentation — some successful, some not.”
Several states have since made changes, hoping to be better positioned to handle their portion of more than $45 billion in rental assistance coming from Congress in the coming months.
Last year, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Mississippi and Kansas were among the states that struggled to distribute rental assistance. Kansas set aside $35 million but siphoned off $15 million for other uses, realizing only on Dec. 27 that it had more time to spend the money.
Mississippi allocated $18 million for rental relief but committed less than $3 million by December. The state said the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development determined the grant program it relied on could not help tenants behind on rent, only those at risk of homelessness. A HUD spokesman denied that, saying the money could be used for rental aid.
In New York, difficulties were blamed on lawmakers’ criteria, including that tenants show they were paying over 30% of their income toward rent. Applicants also had to show a loss of income from April to the end of July, when some saw an increase from extended unemployment and other benefits.
“When you have $100 million to help and only 40% is spent, something is wrong. There is no question there are a lot of people in need,” Justin La Mort, a supervising attorney at Mobilization for Justice Inc., a nonprofit legal services provider in New York.
He said the program was too focused on preventing fraud — at the expense of helping people.
Bonney Ginett, whose massage therapy business dried up during the pandemic, applied for help in July and said she was denied in October because she failed to prove loss of income. The 66-year-old New York City resident now owes more than $26,000 in back rent on her one-bedroom apartment and fears eviction.
“It’s a well-meaning program and probably should and ought to be fixed, but it’s hard to say because of how much overload their system experienced and might still be experiencing,” Ginett said. “The types of relief that could help me are supposedly there. But then you run into a brick wall.”
Lennard Katz, her landlord and a partner at Sussex Realty, said he didn’t understand how Ginett couldn’t get help.
“We believe it’s a travesty that NY State has been unable or unwilling to get money to the tenants and landlords that desperately need assistance during the Covid crisis,” he said by email.
Charni Sochet, a spokesperson for New York State Homes and Community Renewal, said the affordable housing agency “worked intensely for months to ensure rent-burdened households received the assistance for which they qualified” and that “the rent relief program quickly delivered funding to renters most in need in accordance with the specific requirements established by the Legislature.”
Pennsylvania had similar problems, spending $54 million on rental assistance and $10 million on mortgage assistance, out of nearly $175 million dedicated for the program. Just over one-third of applicants got help.