With time running out, not a single San Francisco resident has received a check from the city’s federally funded rent-relief program. Barely a week remains before landlords can resume evictions for unpaid rents due during the pandemic.
“I have never been evicted or homeless,” said Buddy Bates, a renter in Parkmerced and father of two. “I live in that fear constantly now.”
“Civic” spoke with Tomiquia Moss, founder and CEO of AllHome, a regional organization working to disrupt cycles of poverty and homelessness and to create more economic mobility for extremely low-income people. Moss describes the need for more investment across different interventions to reduce the pressure to prioritize those who have the most complex and chronic needs over those who could exit homelessness with shorter-term help, or over prevention strategies.
With less than two weeks remaining before San Francisco landlords will be allowed to evict tenants for unpaid rents that were due during the pandemic, the state had sent checks to a small fraction of the 3,400 households that have requested rent assistance. Many checks will not arrive soon enough to prevent displacement.
The statewide moratorium on evictions for unpaid rents that were due during the pandemic ends June 30 — and recent legislation by San Francisco lawmakers will not change that. State officials are working to extend the moratorium but have yet to reach an agreement. Attorneys in the city’s free legal defense system for tenants are preparing for a cascade that could overwhelm them if state talks fall through, potentially pushing throngs of people from their homes.
New protections will give renters a two-month reprieve after the state’s eviction moratorium expires June 30. But rent debts incurred before that date will still be due next month, and landlords could evict over them.
Just four San Francisco households had received state money to pay off their rent debts as of Monday, with another 23 approved but awaiting payment, according to state figures.
California’s rent-assistance program opened two months ago, and its eviction moratorium is set to lift in barely five weeks on June 30, allowing landlords to eject people for outstanding rent debts.
The company that owns and manages the Plaza East public housing complex in San Francisco’s Western Addition neighborhood says it does not currently have a plan to tear down the property. The shift in the firm’s message comes after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development did not approve a $320 million request from the company and the San Francisco Housing Authority, which owns the land, to demolish and rebuild the existing public housing complex and potentially add hundreds of units.
A local group that worked with San Francisco on a public program to allocate rental relief funds is keeping a list of thousands of applicants from city staff, an official confirmed Friday. That has made it impossible to follow up with the applicants and give them additional help.
Q Foundation created the web application tool for rent assistance through San Francisco’s Give2SF COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund.
San Francisco officials have agreed to lend a private developer $2.7 million to make repairs at a public housing complex in the Western Addition.
Last week, the Citywide Affordable Housing Loan Committee, part of the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, approved the loan to McCormack Baron Salazar, which owns and manages Plaza East Apartments. For years, residents have lived with leaking pipes, pest infestations and electrical fires.
Many renters will need state aid to pay back rents and avoid eviction. Nonprofit groups are walking them through the process.
