More Easthampton residents stand to benefit from emergency rental assistance from the city after the Community Preservation Act Committee loosened requirements for the program, partially in response to few grants being awarded so far.
The program, launched in February, provides residents who make up to 100% of the area median income and have difficulty paying rent due to at least one COVID-19 impact with up to $3,000 in aid. The city was allocated $300,000 in Community Preservation Act funding to set up the program.
The updated guidelines expand eligibility for people living with roommates and those who are not yet behind on rent, in addition to eliminating the need for asset or bank account verification.
With these adjustments, the city hopes to reach more people who need assistance but did not meet previous requirements. The program initially generated a lot of interest. According to Easthampton Assistant Planner Jamie Webb, Community Action Pioneer Valley, which administers the program, received around 100 phone inquiries in the first couple of weeks following its announcement.
But after going through eligibility requirements, only 20 or so of those people completed the application, and the program ended up disbursing a total of $5,000 in grants to a couple of applicants. When comparing the city’s program with state-level assistance, some measures made the local program “more restrictive and harder to apply for,” according to Webb.
“A lot of it was that people weren’t behind in rent yet, or they had roommates and their roommates were doing fine,” Webb noted of the low approval rate, “so the unit’s income was above the threshold to qualify.”
Under the previous guidelines, unrelated individuals on the same lease were considered a household, and were therefore subjected to eligibility requirements regarding income, asset and bank account qualifications. But under the revised guidelines, people living together as roommates will not need to combine their incomes when applying for the program.
The new guidelines state that the former requirement “eliminates many renters who work low-wage jobs and individually qualify, but when combined exceed income limits.”
Under the updated policy, applicants also do not need to be behind in rent in order to qualify. According to the new guidelines, this former requirement was “dehumanizing,” as it would force “otherwise eligible people to go into debt to qualify for the program.”
Applicants also do not need to undergo an asset or bank account verification, as was previously part of the process.
“We’re really just trying to help people out and not punish them for being poor,” Webb said of the updated guidelines.
“It’s only with a year of perspective on it that we’re able to see how the (previous) best practices don’t actually work in a pandemic,” she said. “Most rental assistance programs are really designed to be eviction prevention programs … and what we have now is more of a rental assistance program.”
Other requirements remain unchanged: Applicants’ financial hardship must be related to COVID-19 economic hardship, and and individuals living in subsidized housing can receive assistance only for back rent owed to their landlord. Assistance still maxes out at $3,000, but now applies to rental units, rather than households.
Anyone who has already applied but was denied funding will have their files reevaluated under the new guidelines, Webb said, and Community Action Pioneer Valley will contact those who opted out of applying to inform them of the updates.
The city’s Community Preservation Act Committee voted to pass the amendments, 8-0, after feedback from community members, city councilors and the mayor.
Residents can apply by calling Community Action Pioneer Valley, the program’s administrator, at 413-475-1570. The line is staffed from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, with a break from noon to 1 p.m.