California tenants are facing delays in getting rent relief. Will Gavin Newsom step in?

Tens of thousands of California renters are still waiting to hear if they’ll get COVID-19 rent relief from a statewide program set up in January to prevent a crush of evictions during the coronavirus pandemic.

The number of applications for $2.6 billion in federal rent relief is only expected to grow as Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers hash out a deal to lengthen an eviction moratorium set to expire at the end of this month.

As of Wednesday, 54,520 tenant applications requesting $687.8 million in aid have been submitted to the state’s Housing is Key portal.

So far, 5,443 households have received $61.6 million in relief. Almost all of it went directly to landlords, said Russ Heimerich, spokesman for the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency.

Locally run rent relief programs are struggling to distribute money, too. In fact, programs managed by Sacramento and Sacramento County have used only about 12% of their allotment.

Money can come from two places. The state initially set up its own program to administer $1.4 billion to distressed Californians, while local governments that wanted to establish their own systems were given $1.2 billion for the effort.

In May, Newsom said he wanted to bump funding by another $5 billion to cover 100% of unpaid rent for Californians financially affected by COVID-19. The Legislature has not approved that proposal, and real estate groups are already fighting an extension to the eviction moratorium.

Meanwhile, families throughout California are waiting on checks and petitioning the Legislature and Newsom to give them more time to stay in their homes.

Sacramento mom Ilene Toney also said she worries about being displaced and becoming homeless again if the eviction moratorium isn’t extended.

“I’m scared,” Toney said. “I don’t want to out my kids back out on the street. It’s hard for a mom to say to her kids, ‘hey, we’re not going to have a roof over our heads.’ It’s the worst feeling ever that a mother has to experience.”

Currently, renters can qualify for assistance if they prove pandemic-related hardship like job or salary loss, and if they’re able to pay a total 25% of their rent.

Landlords could also receive up to 80% of any missing rent accrued between April 2020 and March 2021, as long as they agree not to evict their tenants and forgive the remaining 20%. If they don’t, the program would still provide 25% of unpaid rent to tenants.

Tenants have blamed a list of issues with the application process for the delays. They’ve complained of language and internet barriers and challenges with documenting all that’s required to prove financial distress.

“It was a very long application,” said Luis Fernando Anguiano, a member of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment and a project manager with the ApoYolo Project, a program in Yolo County that helps immigrant families.

“There was a lot of documents needed and because a lot of families didn’t speak English or work under the table, there was a huge barrier of not knowing if they would even receive the assistance, Anguiano said.

It takes weeks, sometimes months, to hear whether an application has been approved, all pain points that the state has attempted to mitigate and that the new deal is expected to address. The application used to take more than three hours, Heimerich said, but was recently reduced to an average 30 minutes after the state cut the number questions asked and documents required.

Assemblyman David Chiu, the San Francisco Democrat who wrote the eviction moratorium law, said it’s critical California extend the protections to prevent a “massive wave of evictions” and to keep tenants from years of COVID-induced rental debt.

“Turning the eviction spigot on on July 1 when the state is sitting on billions of dollars that could prevent those evictions would be tragic,” Chiu said.

Slow rent relief in Northern California

The state law that set up the program established a hodgepodge of ways to dole out the funds.

▪ Sacramento County and city both run their own programs. Combined, the two received $100 million to help tenants. As of May, the city had dispersed $4.7 million and the county had sent out $7.6 million, according to a monthly report published by the county.

▪ El Dorado County received $13.9 million and used the state’s program to administer the funds. As of June 22, 247 applicants had requested $2.2 million in assistance. Sixteen applications and $134,746 in aid have been approved and disbursed, according to state data.

▪ Yolo County, which received $13 million, also funnels applicants to the state. As of Tuesday, 706 applicants have requested $5.4 million in aid. About 10%, or $504,720 has been distributed and 87 applicants approved.

▪ Placer County used a blend of both local and state programs to distribute the money. Through its own system, the county has distributed $4.5 million so far out of $11.8 million available to it, according to the county’s public information specialist Katie Combs-Prichard. More than 350 applicants have requested $4 million from the state program. Twenty-three applicants were approved and sent $235,255 in relief.

▪ San Joaquin also runs its own program. Of the $13.4 million it has set aside so far, only $735,000 has been distributed, according to Jolena Voorhis, the deputy county administrator for human services. The county also has another $14.5 million in federal relief to eventually administer, Heimerich said. The city of Stockton also oversees a separate program that received a total $19.4 million to shell out.

Voorhis said San Joaquin hasn’t received as many applications as anticipated, and blamed “barriers” built into the state law— like income eligibility requirements — for the slow down. More than 650 county residents have applied, and 118 have received money, Voorhis said.

Will Newsom extend eviction moratorium?

Imperial Beach mom Patricia Mendoza cobbles together money each month to put enough macaroni and cheese or sopita on the table for her two kids. Sometimes she can afford a Little Caesars pizza for a special family treat, because she knows the $5 pie will feed everyone.

Before the pandemic, Mendoza, 45, worked as a non-emergency medical transport in San Diego County. She made $100 per day driving from city to city assisting people with disabilities. She never called in sick, knowing the day off would put a dent in her budget.

Now, Mendoza gets $58 per week in unemployment, she said, and another $455 per month in child support. The state is chipping in 25% of the rent for her two-bedroom duplex that costs $1,500 per month. She also recycles cans and bottles for a few extra bucks.

She’s still more than $10,000 in rental debt, and hoping for reprieve.

Mendoza, who is also an Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment member, said she’s banking on the state extending the eviction moratorium so she has time to find a new place to live without fear of being thrown out of her current home.

“We really need to extend this,” she said. “The money is there.”

But the California Apartment Association, a key stakeholder in negotiations to extend the eviction moratorium, remains opposed to that idea.

Tom Bannon, the association’s CEO, said in a recent press release that it was “unconscionable” such a small percentage of the billions in funding has been sent to households in need.

The association contends any extension “must be kept short” and limited to renters most in need and with verifiable hardship.

“Unfortunately, thousands of renters are abusing the system,” Bannon argued. “We’re talking about people who had the ability to pay or kept working full time throughout the pandemic but quit paying rent because they knew the moratorium would make it difficult to proceed with an eviction. This cannot continue.”

This story was originally published June 24, 2021 at 10:57 AM with the headline "California tenants are facing delays in getting rent relief. Will Gavin Newsom step in?."