By Candice Richardson
The Seattle Medium
Next to facing the daily threat of life and death, one of the most stressful aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic was the worry millions of people had about whether or not they’d be able to keep a roof over their heads. As a result, $3.9 billion out of the $11 billion Washington State received in federal funding towards pandemic relief was allocated to Economic Support, including rental assistance.
Between July 1, 2021, and December 31, 2021, the City of Seattle — in partnership with United Way of King County, Urban League, Wellspring, and numerous community-based organizations — distributed a total of $27,643,783.88 in Emergency Rental Assistance to 6,346 households impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the seattle.gov website.
Over 75% ($21,245,447.24) of those total funds were allocated to Rental Arrears – covering for renters who were able to avoid eviction due to the federal and local moratoriums, but who were still accruing missed rental payments throughout 2020 and 2021. Assistance for current and future rents made up 17% of the funding, or $4.9 million, Utilities Arrears made up 5% (at approximately $1.4 million), current and future utilities were less than 1% at $100,000, and other housing costs were $791.40.
The circumstances caused by Covid had lawmakers and governing bodies scrambling to adjust to sustain our society as a whole. However, the ability to make trillions of dollars readily available to counteract the devastating impact of the pandemic had many who were already active in combating homelessness wondering why haven’t we attempted this before, even on a smaller scale?
“[Before Covid] we were seeing that too many people who were experiencing homelessness were coming through the Eviction system, and this was particularly true for African American women,” said Lauren McGowen, Associate Vice President, Ending Homelessness & Poverty for the United Way of King County (UWKC).
Prior to the pandemic causing constantly evolving policy changes, McGowen was overseeing a program at the UWKC of called Homebase in partnership with the King County Bar Association. The program provided both legal services and flexible financial assistance, raising $12 million in private funds and saving over a thousand households from facing in Eviction in 2019.
Since the influx of funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020 and the America Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021, the program has evolved along with the crisis.
“It started out with a few months of rental assistance when none of us knew we’d still be here two years from now,” McGowen says. “And most recently, we were able to pay for up to twelve months of rental assistance for households in our region. And I think along the way, we have worked really hard to make it as low barrier as possible for households.”
Part of lowering that barrier is ensuring that racial inequity is being dealt with head-on in the application process – something the Seattle Office of Housing states they are working hand in hand with UWKC in addressing.
“Recognizing that communities of color have been disproportionately affected by the health and economic impacts of this pandemic, the Office of Housing contracted with organizations rooted in communities of color to help make sure rental assistance was equitably distributed,” the Office of Housing said in a written statement. “Of the households we have racial demographic data for, 65% are led by a person that identifies as Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color. Of the households we have ethnicity data for, 17% identify as Hispanic or Latino.”
“It’s been such an important part of this approach because we’ve known not only does homelessness and evictions impact people of color, we know that the impacts of COVID were disproportionately impacting communities of color,” states McGowen.
“I think this has been a learning experience and we have evolved our methods over the last two years,” adds McGowen. “And with each time we have done it, I think we have gotten stronger and are proud that over 70% of the households that have been served are people of color and we have been able to both change our own practices and policies to make sure that those are the folks that are getting the dollars and are able to stay in their home.”
Some of the policies UWKC changed internally is to work with the Office of Housing at the City of Seattle to provide direct rent payments to individuals if their landlord refused to participate in the rental assistance program to reduce barriers to participation for those who were most in need; the organization also made sure to translate all their documents into over 20 languages to maximize communication with diverse populations in the community.
In February of 2022, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced that an approximately $6 million out of the $25 million in rental assistance would be made exclusively to income-qualified renters, or those making up to 80% of the median income in the local area.
Going into the second quarter of the third year of the pandemic, enrollment for rental assistance is now closed to new applicants as applications from the last two years are still being processed. This is cold comfort to those who were not able to get a final decision before the eviction moratorium ended at the end of February. King County officials said there are over 100,000 individuals residing in the Greater Seattle-Tacoma area who say they are behind on rent, they estimate anywhere from 7,000 to 8,000 applicants for Rental Assistance will be left without help.
The roll out of rental support in contrast to the sheer number of those in need still falls short, even with unprecedented funding being made available. Once again, according to McGowen, the volume isn’t simply indicative of those impacted by the pandemic, it’s indicative of those who were already in need prior to Covid.
“I think that is such an important thing for us to all remember is before the pandemic, only one in five households that were income eligible for rent assistance received it,” states McGowen. “And that’s because rent assistance isn’t an entitlement program the way that food stamps or earnings tax credits are. Anyone that’s eligible for those programs get them. Rent assistance is not like that. It’s just not funded at a high enough level. It’s still not budgeted at a high enough level. There are thousands of households right now that are in need of rent assistance that we don’t have enough funding for in this region.”
Now that there’s been a precedent established as a result of the global emergency that is the Covid-19 pandemic, the question on McGowen’s mind is how do we as a society continue this type of aid? As she mentions, despite the fact that the country is moving towards recovery, the need for rental assistance doesn’t wane.
“I think that is the thing that is most surprising to me is that people don’t realize how many people were in need of assistance before the pandemic,” she asserts. “And so that alone represents so many of our challenges in this region and across the country and there’s something we can do about that. We can push Congress. We can fix it. I’m ever the optimist.”
