Region’s tenants to get rent aid

Programs will help pay off some or all back payments that have accumulated in past 12 months

Almost $1.2 billion in rental assistance could start flowing as soon as this week, helping lowincome tenants in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties pay down a mountain of rent debt that piled up during the pandemic.

Designed to keep low-income renters from losing their homes, local programs will eliminate some — and in some cases all — of the back rent that out-of-work tenants accumulated from April 2020 through March.

You don’t have to be a U.S. citizen or a legal immigrant to get help, although you do need to prove you lost income because of the pandemic.

“We anticipate in the next week or two, the first payments will go out, and they’ll continue to go out until we expend all the dollars,” said Geoffrey Ross, a deputy director for financial assistance and federal programs at the state’s Housing and Community Development Department.

Southern California’s share amounts to about 45% of the $2.6 billion in federal rental assistance earmarked for the entire state.

That $2.6 billion comes from the federal stimulus bill signed by former President Donald Trump in late December and doesn’t yet include money from the American Rescue Plan signed last month by President Joe Biden. Biden’s bill is expected to generate $2.2 billion more in rent aid for the state.

“This program will bring much-needed relief to tenants trying desperately to stay in their homes and, in turn, landlords who have been hard-hit by the economic effects of the pandemic,” San

Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Chair Curt Hagman said in a statement announcing his county’s program Friday.

Hagman called the new assistance effort “a key step toward economic recovery for our region.”

Thousands in debt

The exact number of families getting assistance isn’t known, but estimates are in the tens of thousands.

About 64,000 households are expected to receive aid in the city of Los Angeles alone. The city expects to devote at least $235.5 million of its $259 million allocation to paying off landlords who are owed rent, with some of the money going to the city’s eviction defense program and outreach.

Santa Ana estimates it will help just over 2,500 tenants, while Long Beach expects to help about 4,700 households. Anaheim, which stopped taking applications March 31, expects to assist all 2,212 eligible families that applied.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s latest Household Pulse Survey showed 664,635 tenants from all four counties, or 17% of those surveyed, said they were behind on rent during the last half of March.

A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia estimated Californian’s rent debt would total about $1.7 billion by the end of 2020, but later revised that number downward to $400 million in a subsequent study with the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office. Unpaid rent averaged $4,500 per household, the study found.

Some estimates are higher. L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti projected the $700 million in assistance his city expects to generate from its combined programs will cover just over half of the rent owed by the city’s “very” low-income residents.

“This program will bring working families one step closer to recovery,” Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez said at a March 23 news conference. But, she added, “even after this round of funding, our work is far from over.”

How it works

State legislation approved in January in Senate Bill 91 set the rules for

Los Angeles County:

Orange County:

Riverside County:

San Bernardino County: how federal rental assistance from the December stimulus bill can be spent.

The program allows for 80% of a tenant’s back rent to be paid directly to their landlord — provided the property owner agrees to forgive the rest.

If the landlord doesn’t come on board, the tenants can get 25% of the amount they owe for up to 15 months — guaranteeing they meet state requirements to avoid eviction at least through June.

The program is limited to low-income renters — that is, households earning 80% of their area median income.

For a family of four, that median amounts to $102,450 per year in Orange County, $90,100 in L.A. County and $60,250 in Riverside County and San Bernardino counties.

In the city of L.A. and San Bernardino County, the cutoff is even lower. Tenants must earn less than 50% of the area median income to qualify (or $56,300 for a family of four in L.A. and $37,650 in San Bernardino County).

City leaders said they want to help those with the greatest need.

Three programs

How to apply and how much assistance tenants get depends on where they live.

The state has three types of programs.

Under the first, local governments administer both their state and federal allocations themselves. Four local cities — Los Angeles, Long Beach, Anaheim and Irvine — are running their own programs and taking applications directly.

Under the second, the state housing development administers state and federal allocations on behalf of a city or county. This includes all 163 Southern California cities with fewer than 200,000 residents plus Fontana and the county of Los Angeles, which

voluntarily opted to join the state-run program.

That means Fontana residents and all L.A. County residents living outside Los Angeles, Long Beach and Santa Clarita must apply directly through the state’s application portal, located at HousingIsKey.com.

Both of these program types follow the guidelines set in SB 91.

The third type, known as “Option C,” is a combination of the first two. Local governments administer money they get directly from the federal government, while the state administers their state allocation.

Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties chose Option C, as did five local cities: Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Ana, Santa Clarita and Moreno Valley.

Residents in Option C jurisdictions can apply for assistance through the state application portal, but must also apply to their local programs, said Russ Heimerich, spokesman for the state’s Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency. Each jurisdiction’s federal allocation has to be spent before state money goes out.

Hence, all Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino county residents living outside of Anaheim, Irvine, Santa Ana, Riverside, San Bernardino and Moreno Valley must apply through their county programs.

Option C programs don’t adhere strictly to SB 91 rules. The amount of assistance provided and the rules for qualifying vary widely.

Santa Ana’s program, for example, is a continuation of its CARES for Tenants package adopted early in the pandemic. It limits assistance to $5,500 per household, which can be used for any rent due since March 13, 2020, both past and future.

Orange County is capping rental assistance at $10,000 per household, but only for unpaid back rent or utility bills.

In San Bernardino County, landlords can get 100% of their tenants’ back rent, instead of 80%.

Garcetti said rental assistance is “about erasing that debt that is stressing out families today.”

“Nobody,” he said, “should lose their home because of a pandemic.”