Since its launch in 2021, California’s $5.2 billion COVID-era rent relief program has been plagued by delays, criticism and lawsuits.
Now, it may be in danger of running out of money.
That could hurt the more than 100,000 renters who are still waiting for assistance from a program that officially stopped taking new applications more than a year ago.
The first warning sign came in the form of an email that a state Department of Housing and Community Development employee sent in early September to lawyers representing many of the same anti-poverty groups that struck a legal settlement with the department on the program. did. earlier this year.
“As of July 31, 2023, there are $128,940,473 in funds remaining to be paid out to applicants in the program,” the staff wrote in an email shared with CalMatters. An estimated 5,521 families will be provided assistance in the next round of payments. But the letter said any leftover money “is unlikely to add enough money to the remaining balance to support more than one additional payment”.
In other words, the program may soon run out of cash, although it’s impossible to say when.
In a statement, department spokesman Pablo Espinoza did not dispute the contents of the email, but stressed that there was still cash available in the program.
“We are not short on funds and we continue to evaluate applications that are eligible for funding,” he wrote. “The fact is that this was always a temporary emergency program, and funding is not infinite. It is unclear whether there will be enough funds to pay all eligible applicants,” he said in a later statement.
This is contrary to earlier claims made by the department.
In March 2022, then-spokesperson for the state housing department, Noor Kausar, told CalMatters that the program “will continue to operate until all received applications have been processed and payments have been made to all eligible applicants.”
A statement on the program website, which has been removed but archived on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, included a similar claim: “For rent or utilities outstanding between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2022, March 31 “All eligible applications received on or before 2022, will have to make payment.”
The program was created to help struggling tenants cover rental debt accrued between the start of the pandemic and March 2022. The Housing Department has struggled to work through a backlog of 19 months of pending applicants and unresolved rejection appeals.
Espinoza acknowledged those prior statements in his statement.
“This is an error that has been addressed and corrected with all stakeholders for some time now. We embrace this new opportunity to accurately replicate the information,” Espinoza said.
According to the Housing Department, 92,713 Californians are still waiting for a preliminary decision on their request for financial aid. Another 34,751 appealed the earlier rejection. It is impossible to say how many of these approximately 130,000 applications will ultimately be rejected.
The possibility of the state’s COVID relief fund accounts being closed comes just as a previous COVID-era moratorium on evictions is set to expire statewide. In Los Angeles and Alameda County, this has led to an uptick in eviction proceedings.