More than 9,000 Oregon tenants who applied for rent assistance two months ago are still waiting for aid

An unprecedented need coupled with a faulty state software system and staffing shortages at some local agencies has led to a massive backlog of rent assistance applications for the Oregon Emergency Rental Assistance Program.

Now, that backlog could cause hundreds of renters to lose protection from eviction.

More than 9,000 tenants who applied for assistance two months ago are still waiting for their applications to be approved.

“We’re very concerned about folks who did the right thing, applied for rent assistance as soon as it was available, submitted the documentation to their landlord, and now are going to bear the burden of these processing delays,” said Alison McIntosh, policy director for the Oregon Housing Alliance, which advocates for renters. “They will be the people who experience the eviction and the negative consequences for themselves and their families, and it’s entirely preventable.”

A massive backlog

Nearly 34,000 Oregon households have requested more than $202 million in rent and utility assistance through the state’s rental assistance program since applications opened in May, according to the state. Only about 20% of applications have actually been funded or approved for funding so far with about $43 million going to 6,844 households.

Of the applications that have not yet been approved for funding, 9,309 have been in the system for two months or more, according to data provided by Oregon Housing and Community Services, the state agency overseeing the program.

It’s unclear what percentage of those renters could be in danger of immediate eviction.

“It would not be accurate to state that those who have had an application in the (queue) for more than 60 days are at imminent risk of eviction given any eviction diversion programs, other support that tenants may be receiving, and the appetite of landlords to evict tenants,” wrote Connor McDonnell, a spokesperson for Oregon Housing and Community Services, in an email.

Multnomah County, where renters are protected from eviction for 90 days after informing their landlords they’ve applied for aid, has the largest number of unprocessed applications that have been in the system for at least 60 days with 4,033.

The 90-day clock in Multnomah County, or 60-day clock elsewhere in the state, doesn’t go into effect until renters inform their landlords they’ve applied for assistance. The state requires renters to inform their landlords they’ve applied for help before their first court hearing to receive the protection, although many renters have provided the documentation to their landlords earlier.

Oregon renters also have until the end of February 2022 to repay outstanding rent accumulated between April 2020 and June 2021, meaning that those who applied for help with back rent but were able to pay their bills beginning July 1 won’t be in danger of eviction now. A portion of unprocessed applications could be close to being fully processed, too, and some landlords may be holding off on issuing eviction notices because they are aware their tenants have applied for help.

But McIntosh said she has heard anecdotally from panicked service providers about tenants who have struggled to pay their rent since July and are losing, or are on the verge of losing, their eviction protections because their applications have not been processed. Spiking COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations caused by the highly contagious delta variant has led to added uncertainty for many renters trying to recover from the pandemic.

A total of 1,864 Washington County renters, 929 Marion County renters and 736 Clackamas County renters who applied for help 60 or more days ago are still waiting for their applications to be approved for funding, according to the state.

Kemp Shuey, executive director for Community Action Organization, which is the agency processing rent assistance applications in Washington County, said those unprocessed applications include incomplete, withdrawn or ineligible applications.

With those applications filtered out, Shuey said the number of Washington County applications that have gone more than 60 days without being approved for funding drops by about half – and his agency is focused on prioritizing those applicants.

“This is very much a triage approach as we are focusing our energies on households most at risk to receive an eviction notice and working back from there,” Shuey wrote in an email.

Becky Straus, a staff attorney for the Oregon Law Center, said the first day that landlords would have legally been allowed to file eviction notices for nonpayment of rent by tenants whose 60-day protections had run out would have been Monday because landlords must give those tenants a 10-day notice before filing.

That means it could be several weeks before any increase in eviction filings caused by the processing delays will become measurable.

“The state has a responsibility to ensure efficient administration of these potentially life-saving benefits that were designed to prevent eviction,” Straus wrote in an email.

Attempts to speed up processing

Last month, the state hired an outside vendor to process up to 8,500 applications in the tri-county area, where the majority of applications have been filed. Many local agencies tasked with processing rent assistance applications have also developed work-arounds in the last month to avoid fully processing applications through a state application system developed by vendor Allita 360, which they say has been riddled with issues.

Brian Greenwood, owner of Allita 360, didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Oregonian/OregonLive Thursday.

And in its latest attempt to speed up processing and target renters most in need, Oregon Housing and Community Services announced Sept. 7 that it would reclaim nearly $87 million from communities that had been slow to deliver rent assistance through the Oregon Emergency Rental Assistance Program, moving that money into a central reserve that the state will reallocate to local agencies once they’ve distributed the money they have.

The state believes the move will allow it to direct funds to counties with the greatest number of applicants when those counties are prepared to use that money to immediately process those applications.

More than $19 million was pulled from Multnomah County, which has seen the most rent assistance applications in the state but has managed to process just 13% of the nearly 11,500 applications it has received so far. About 41% of applications in Multnomah County are still pending initial review.

Denis Theriault, a county spokesman, said the county has already made progress in speeding up processing and is planning to hire more staff. He said he expects Multnomah County will ultimately get back the $19 million in funding the state recouped, if not more, because of the immense need for assistance in the county.

Jimmy Jones is the executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, which distributes rent assistance to tenants in Marion and Polk counties. He’s also the legislative chair of the Community Action Partnership of Oregon, which represents community agencies across the state.

While the state did not pull any money from his agency, Jones said many communities across the state that had money taken away are concerned that the funds won’t be equitably redistributed and that renters in their communities will lose out on aid.

“We’re just generally frustrated that the state decided to do this without any warning and any collaboration,” he said. “We’re skeptical about whether it’s going to work. I think we’re skeptical about whether the monies will remain in communities that they’ve been dedicated to.”

Oregon could also be in danger of losing some of that funding entirely.

The federal government allocated $204 million to the state for the Oregon Emergency Rental Assistance Program. But beginning Sept. 30, it has the right to reclaim funds from states that it determines are “unable or unwilling” to spend the money and reallocate that funding to states that have allocated at least 65% of their money.

Only about 20% of Oregonians who applied for assistance through the program have received or been approved for funding, with Oregon committing about 21% of the $204 million it received from the federal government so far.

McDonnell said Oregon will need the full $204 million to pay out assistance to all the renters who have applied for help through the program, and the state is confident that the federal government won’t reclaim its money because Oregon has shown the need for funding.

Other states have struggled to pay out federal rent assistance as well. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that 24 states have allocated a smaller percentage of their federal allocation than Oregon.

While the U.S. Department of Treasury said that high-performing states that have allocated more than 65% of their funds could receive additional funding, they have not determined what percentage of funds states must allocate by Sept. 30 to avoid having funding taken away, said Liz Bourgeois, a U.S. Treasury spokesperson.

In an email, Bourgeois wrote that the agency’s “strong preference” is to allow states to use their full funding. But she also issued a warning:

“Treasury is prepared to reallocate funds pursuant to the statute,” she wrote, “from grantees that have not provided these resources to renters in need and their landlords.”

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This article was originally published by OregonLive on September 17, 2021. Authored by Jamie Goldberg.