Why is it taking so long to get relief money to renters?
Gov. Jay Inslee announced a new housing policy on Thursday that aims to prevent renters from being evicted while they wait for already-allocated federal rent assistance dollars to hit their landlords’ bank accounts.
While he framed it is as a “bridge” rather than an extension of the eviction moratorium, which ends on June 30, the few details released this week appear to shield renters with arrears from eviction until Sept. 30, as long as they are pursuing rent assistance or making partial payments.
Across Washington state, nearly 200,000 households are behind on rent, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data.
In his remarks, Inslee noted that counties have been slow to distribute the more than $1 billion of federal rent assistance dollars.
In Thurston County, just $4.1 million of the county’s $25 million allocation has been spent. That only includes money allocated since April 2021 through what’s known as the Treasury Rent Assistance Program (more money is expected to come from the state soon).
That money has reached 643 households — but more than 1,400 households have pending applications or are waiting for screening appointments, according to data provided by the county. (Those figures do not include money distributed in 2020).
“We can’t spend it fast enough,” said Tom Webster, Housing Program Manager for Thurston County.
One of the limitations to how fast money can go out has to do with the payment system, according to Kirsten York, CEO of Community Action Council (CAC), the nonprofit contracted by the county to distribute the majority of rent assistance dollars. CAC fronts the money and waits 2-3 weeks for the county to pay them back.
According to Webster, Thurston County has received guidance from the state Department of Commerce that they should not advance money to CAC. Penny Thomas, a spokesperson for the state Department of Commerce, confirmed this policy but did not explain the rationale behind it.
Thomas added that the prohibition on cash advancements is being reviewed as the Department of Commerce prepares to distribute a new round of rent assistance dollars.
The reimbursement model is a major barrier to speeding up the process, York said. She estimates that CAC was pumping out about $250,000 per week before; they’ve since added six new staff members and ramped it up to closer to $700,000-$1 million per week.
“You really do have to pace spending,” York said. “There will be a point in time at which our organization will hit, I would say a million dollars a week is probably our maximum that we can fiscally push out.”
Once tenants get the money, it can wipe out a year’s worth of debt and even cover three months of future rent, if a tenant knows they won’t be able to pay. On average, households are getting about $6,300 of debt wiped out, though for some it’s as high as $25,000, according to York.
The other major barrier slowing things down is paperwork.
The federal government requires pay stubs proving a tenant’s income is below 80% of Area Median Income (about $65,000 for a four person household in Thurston County), documenting any income from unemployment, and verifying their lease. After that, a voucher form is sent to the landlord to sign which states that the relief will cover what is owed.
York said the best way to schedule an appointment is through the website, because they get more than 200 calls every day.
York said the intention of the program is not to spend all the money in the next few months, but to continue distributing it for several years.
Thomas, the spokesperson for the Department of Commerce, pushed back against that characterization.
“While it is true that the budget is available over two years, it is absolutely not the case that payments should be stretched out,” Thomas wrote in an email to The Olympian. “We want counties to spend their money as soon as possible.”
Landlords have been critical of the slow rollout, and of the governor’s extension of eviction protections.
“Our experience of trying to get those funds on behalf of the tenants in our buildings has been, frankly, chaotic and pretty disorganized,” said Zach Kosturos, President of Prime Locations, which manages nearly 2,000 multifamily apartment units, most of them in Thurston County.
About 12 percent of Prime Locations’ tenants owe some amount of back rent, ranging from a few hundred dollars to as much as $20,000 or $30,000, Kosturos said. The total amount owed is close to $600,000, which if you divide that by the number of tenants in debt works out to about $2,600 per household.
That’s compared to less than 1 percent of tenants who owe back rent in normal times.
“The vast majority of our tenants are abiding by the lease and paying their rent and being responsible just as we would expect, and there are some people who are legitimately trying to get help and having a hard time getting it,” Kosturos said. “And there are others that are frankly taking advantage of the situation and really not corresponding with us.”
Kosturos said that while most of their tenants who are behind are pursuing rent assistance, maybe 30 percent have been unresponsive. He questioned why landlords are not allowed to apply for the funds directly if a tenant will not. He described the governor’s decision to continue shielding tenants with rental debt from eviction as “disheartening.”
“The whole legislative session as it related to the housing policies that were adopted were all predicated upon a deal that was struck in order to move forward from this [eviction moratorium],” Kosturos said.
You can sign up for rent assistance through Community Action Council here.
This story was originally published June 27, 2021 at 5:30 AM.
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