Yahoo Movies Millions in NC rental aid sitting unspent as eviction moratorium ends
Linda Taylor, a full-time nurse at WakeMed, saw her hours cut because of COVID-19, down to 20 a week.
And even after she could return full time, she had to hold off when she couldn’t find adequate child care during the pandemic labor shortage. Her daughter has disability and needs constant care, she said.
“Me trying to work and take care of her, that’s just been really horrific,” Taylor said. “I’ve basically just been doing what I needed to just keep my head afloat.”
Her church, some friends and stimulus checks helped replace the lost income, but Taylor ultimately fell three months behind on rent at her Raleigh apartment, finding herself among the nearly 210,000 households behind on rent in North Carolina, according to the US Census Bureau’s late June household pulse survey.
Taylor and her daughter eventually got help from $25 billion in COVID-19 rental assistance passed by Congress in December, including $33 million for Wake County. She applied through the county’s House Wake! program that reopened in March with the federal funding.
“The representative that I have, he’s been really communicative with me,” Taylor said. “I haven’t had a problem trying to get through to anyone.”
A vast majority of Wake’s $33 million, however, has yet to be spent, and with the federal eviction moratorium having ended Saturday, the assistance is the only remaining protection for many people.
Just $4.3 million, or 13%, of Wake County’ allocation has been spent.
Durham County has spent about a third of the $9.6 million it got from December’s stimulus, according to county officials.
Wake and Durham are among 12 counties in the state that met a population threshold to operate their own programs. Five tribal governments also have their own programs.
North Carolina’s Housing Opportunities and Prevention of Eviction, or HOPE, program covers the other 88 counties. Of its $546.6 million allocation, just 16%, or $86.5 million, has been spent, according to the N.C. Office of Recovery and Resiliency, or NCORR, which runs the program.
The numbers are similar across the country.
Of the $25 billion allocated, only 12% had been spent through June. The U.S. Treasury has yet to update figures from July.
The state has obligated an additional $85.9 million for households but is waiting for tenants and landlords to return paperwork to release it, officials said.
Wake County has obligated an additional $11.2 million. A county spokesperson said that a year’s worth of rent is set aside for each household accepted, though the initial acceptance period is three months. The tenant must show continued eligibility to continue receiving aid.
The state and county programs also have allocations from $21.55 billion passed by Congress in March for when the December rental assistance money runs out..
Why so much unspent?
Laura Hogshead, head of NCORR and the HOPE program, told The News & Observer the average payout time to tenants is under 20 days and the slow rollout reflects people not knowing about the program or not having had to ask for help before.
“We have a full-court press going on with outreach to make sure that we are getting the word to everyone who is eligible,” she said. “These are probably folks that have never reached out for assistance before. They’ve never found themselves in this position.”
The program’s call center averaged 5,700 incoming calls a day in July, Hogshead said.
“The word is getting out there. It’s just a massive population, and a massive number of people who need the help,” she said.
Samuel Gunter, executive director of the N.C. Housing Coalition, told The N&O despite overall improvements over the past year, some may not trust the HOPE program will come through.
The program started in October last year with $133 million in federal aid from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or CARES.
But it ran out of money in just one month, and it took several more months for the funding to reach tenants and landlords.
“You don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression,” Gunter said.
He said the program faced challenges building a system that didn’t exist before the pandemic.
The program also didn’t restart until May, months after Congress allocated funding in December.
Early in the year, state officials said they were waiting for updated federal guidance because instructions for how to use the funding under the Trump administration were no longer feasible.
A General Assembly bill passed in March also slowed the HOPE program’s ability to reopen, Hogshead said at the time. She said that issue has since been addressed.
But those delays, Gunter said, have likely left tenants and landlords skeptical.
Janae Moore, director of government affairs for the Apartment Association of North Carolina, said eligibility for aid needed to be widened.
Currently, both the state and county programs require tenants to make 80% or less of the area median income and to show they have lost income due to the pandemic.
When it first reopened, the HOPE program was limited to those at 50% or below the AMI.
In Wake’s program, renters making above 50% AMI have to starting putting 30% of their income to rent after the first three-month repayment period. That’s if they’re still at 80% or below upon recertification.
Among all applicants to Wake’s program, nearly 1 in 3 are rejected for the initial period, according to the county.
“I do know that [rental aid programs] are trying their best, but the need is great, and the rollout has been slow,” Moore said.
She said slow payouts cause mistrust.
“You have to earn the trust of housing providers to know that this wouldn’t be a bureaucratic clog. That’s what we’re looking at now,” Moore said. “The government often ties a lot of strings to that assistance, and to me, the pandemic has highlighted that even when it should be simple, it’s not.”
Eviction moratorium ends
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first issued the nationwide eviction moratorium last September. After 11 months and multiple extensions, it ended Saturday.
The lapse comes as over 63,000 N.C households are somewhat likely to leave their home in the next two months due to eviction, according to Census Bureau’s latest household pulse survey.
Nearly 108,000 households have no confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent. Another nearly 381,000 only have slight confidence.
The Biden administration said last week the president would have extended the moratorium, but his hands were tied due to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.
That 5-4 decision, in response to legal challenges to the CDC order, allowed the ban to continue, but in the deciding vote, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote Congress would have to pass legislation to extend it past Saturday.
Biden called on Congress to act, but despite Democratic efforts in the House, no legislation got through in time to keep the moratorium going.
Biden also called on states and municipalities to accelerate efforts to disburse the federal aid, in part to slow the delta variant, a more transmissible strain of the virus SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.
A recent study from Eviction Lab, based at Princeton University, showed neighborhoods that were more vulnerable to eviction had more people who were unvaccinated. The recent surge in cases is vastly among those unvaccinated.
A recent study from the American Journal of Epidemiology also concluded evictions could increase COVID transmission by limiting displaced people’s ability to socially distance themselves.
Emily Benfer, an author of the study and a Wake Forest University professor who studies health and housing, told The N&O that the researchers found an excess of 430,000 cases nationwide and 10,000 excess deaths due to COVID-19 in states that lifted moratoriums prior to the CDC ban last September.
“We know that eviction increases transmission of respiratory disease,” Benfer said.
But Moore, who opposes the moratorium, said the end of the ban won’t necessarily lead to mass evictions.
“Some of those tenants have made payment plans, payment arrangements. Some of those tenants have access to HOPE funds,” she said.
She said, for most landlords, eviction is a last resort.
“Housing providers are really doing their best. They are absolutely not in favor of displacement and are really looking to the government to provide real solutions that will be meaningful,” Moore said.
Gunter acknowledged landlords have lost money the last 11 months but said evictions won’t recoup those losses, especially when rental aid is available.
The repercussions from any eviction, not just in a pandemic, are endless, Benfer said.
“Eviction, even before the pandemic, was associated with severe poor health circumstances, with instability, both economically and in future housing opportunities,” she said. “It ultimately pushes families to the outskirts of society — to where they don’t have access to opportunity, the ability to thrive, or to ever recover from this singular event in their life that in this situation was due, for the most part, to the pandemic and the economic downturn.”
Taylor said in her case getting help staved off a potential eviction.
”Thank God I had a good landlord who wasn’t trying to totally evict me,” she said. “I let him know that I had applied for the program, so he was willing to work with me until they was able to give me some assistance.”
How to apply for assistance
Those needing assistance in the Triangle outside Wake and Durham counties can go to hope.nc.gov or call 888-927-5467.
Tenants in Wake County can apply for help at housewake.org, by calling 919-899-9911 or by emailing housing@telamon.org.
Durham renters can apply at DurhamERAP.dconc.gov.
Those seeking legal assistance with an eviction can contact Legal Aid of North Carolina at 866-219-5262.
NCORR announced Friday that landlords can now refer tenants to the HOPE program for aid screening. Tenants previously had to apply on their own.
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