Chrystal Gift moves a sign near her new camping spot during a homeless camp eviction under Highway 101
in San Rafael on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021. (Sherry LaVars/Marin Independent Journal)
A pandemic program offering rental assistance to low-income residents in Marin is set to wind down.
Community Action Marin, a San Rafael nonprofit that took over the program from the county in the fall, has dispensed more than $1.8 million since mid-November. It has about $1 million left to distribute by the end of next month.
“The goal of the Emergency Rental Assistance Program is to prevent households from experiencing evictions and homelessness due to the financial and health impacts of COVID-19,” said Chandra Alexandre, the nonprofit’s chief executive officer.
Many low-income households were unable to pay their rent during the early months of the pandemic because of employment losses when much of the economy was shut down. Some essential workers lost income when they became ill with COVID-19.
Marin County ended its rental assistance program after distributing $27 million to more than 1,900 households from April 2020 through September 2022. The money came from the $1.9 trillion federal American Rescue Plan Act. An additional $4.6 million in government funds for rental assistance was available to Marin when the county ended its program.
Rather than continue to operate the program, the county opted to contract with Community Action Marin, the largest nonprofit social services provider in Marin, to administer it. The $3.2 million contract allots $2.88 million for rent payments; $185,000 to the nonprofit for administrative, accounting and fiscal oversight services; and $145,000 to be shared with North Marin Community Services and Legal Aid of Marin.
North Marin Community Services is helping people apply for assistance, and Legal Aid of Marin is providing legal support.
As of Wednesday, Community Action Marin had awarded grants to 228 households. About $1.75 million was awarded for rent and about $57,000 for utility bills. The average grant was for about $7,400, covering four months of rent.
As of Jan. 31, 56% of the grants issued for arrears had gone to households earning below 30% of the area median income, which is less than $54,800 for a family of four.
The rental assistance program is different in several key respects from the program that the county operated. The new program can reimburse renters who borrowed funds to pay their rent and makes subtenants eligible for the first time. It also allows grants to be used to pay up to three months of prospective rent.
“Some people might be current with their rent, but they might owe a friend or family or they may have run up their credit cards to pay rent,” said Laurel Hill, a manager at the nonprofit.
“If they can show that the way they stayed current was to borrow money, we can help them,” Hill said. “We do that by paying up to three months at a time of prospective rent.”
Hill said people seeking assistance to repay rent debt must provide some tangible evidence.
For example, if they borrowed the money from someone, both the applicant and the lender are required to sign an affidavit testifying to that fact. If applicants used a credit card to pay rent, they must provide a copy of the credit card statement.
“We have to have something,” Hill said. “We don’t give money directly to the applicants ever. The check is paid to the landlord. That is true if you’re the tenant or the subtenant.”
Christopher Miranda, who is managing the rental assistance program for Community Action Marin, said it is hard to tell if the $1 million the nonprofit has left will be enough to cover the requests it has received so far. Miranda said the nonprofit has 139 completed applications, 77 of which are being processed. He said the organization has another 105 applications that are incomplete.
The nonprofit continues to receive new applications as well.
“We have in person drop-in hours every Tuesday between 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.,” Miranda said. “Last Tuesday we had about 37 people show up.”
Nearly all of the applications have come from tenants, although landlords can also initiate the process.
“There are a few landlords who recently purchased new properties that are more onboard with the process,” Miranda said. “For example, Mission Rock Residential has been fully onboard with doing outreach to some of their tenants who are in arrears for $10,000 to $20,000.”
Miranda said tenants must submit an application before payments can be issued to a landlord.
A state moratorium on evicting tenants unable to pay their rent because of COVID-19 ended June 30. Marin County supervisors, however, kept a similar prohibition in place through Sept. 30. Some Marin municipalities — including San Rafael, Novato, Larkspur and Fairfax — followed suit. Marin County imposed its first first moratorium on March 24, 2020, soon after the pandemic hit.
Legal Aid of Marin has been referring clients who have received eviction notices to Community Action Marin. Lucie Hollingsworth, an attorney with the organization, said at least 24 Marin residents have received an unlawful detainer, more commonly referred to as an eviction notice, since the beginning of December.
“Upwards of 90% of them have been due to nonpayment of rent,” Hollingsworth said. “A much higher percentage than normal.”
Hollingsworth said that before the pandemic she was usually able to negotiate an agreement with the landlord to allow her clients to remain in their apartment by agreeing to repay the debt over time. Now, however, she said about half of the time landlords are insisting that the tenants leave, even if there is a chance they might qualify for rental assistance.
“I suspect that landlords are tired,” Hollingsworth said. “They just want to get tenants who can reliably pay rent. So many more people are struggling with that today.”
She noted that Marin rents have recently risen about 10%, and many seniors lost their jobs during the pandemic and haven’t been able to find new ones.
“There is no way to make up that income and pay going forward,” Hollingsworth said.
Hyacinth Hinojosa, a deputy county administrator, said if there is a need for additional rental assistance, the county could continue the program by tapping into an additional $4.4 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds that remain available to the county.
Used with permission by the Marin Independent Journal.
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