The City may receive another round of rental assistance funding from the State to assist low-income tenants with back-due rent from as far back as April 1, 2020.
On Tuesday, March 22, the Long Beach City Council requested that staff work with delegations in Washington and Sacramento to report back on the status of rental assistance payments and the feasibility of expediting such payments, as well as advocating to expand the program’s eligibility requirements.
Of Long Beach’s initial $64 million in rental assistance funds, about $9 million remains, according to Oscar Orci, deputy director of Development Services.
Those funds have assisted approximately 4,000 households, Orci said, including over 38 households with overdue utility payments.
“We still have quite a few requests for assistance that far exceed our remaining funds,” Orci said.
More funding for the City’s rental assistance program is expected to come down from the State, Orci said. A report back to council on funding options will come to the council next month.
Despite dwindling funds, tenants are encouraged to continue to submit their completed applications—or work on incomplete applications—as those applications will be used during the next round of funding.
Last year, the State warned cities that they were required to allocate at least 50% of their funds by the end of this month—a goal Long Beach has already surpassed—if they wanted to avoid having the funds reallocated to other municipalities.
The remaining funds will be dispersed on a first-come-first-served basis—dependent on income level and the level of completion of their rental assistance application.
“We are working with the more challenging cases at this time, what we call the ‘red flag’ cases, to be able to assist with tenants and the landlords,” Orci said, noting that they’ve recently increased their consulting staff to assist with applications.
For example, a request may not meet the lease contract amount, or multiple tenants may live in a unit but only one tenant may send in documentation for the application.
Applications require participation from both the tenant and the landlord. If a landlord does not want to participate in the program, tenants are unable to receive rental assistance.
Councilmember Daryl Supernaw said a resident of District 4 submitted a rental assistance application last October, only to find out that his landlord had not submitted the required paperwork.
“How do we get the word out that you know, don’t waste time in the queue if your landlord is not on board?” Supernaw asked Orci.
Though the City has a program where tenants can receive funds directly, they must prove that they gave those funds to their landlord, which Orci said has been “very challenging.”
Case managers will continue to assist tenants with incomplete applications, Orci said.
Applications will be accepted until March 31, 2022. To qualify, households must be at or below 80% of the Area Median Income ($81,100 for a family of three) and prove loss of income due to COVID-19. More information about Long Beach’s emergency rental assistance program, including eligibility requirements, are available here.
