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HomeMy WebLinkAbout7.22.20 RHAB Minutes1 Rental Housing Advisory Board Meeting Minutes July 22, 2020 Present: Alec Gulan, Lynnsey Erickson, Timothy Ernst, Todd Hutchison Linda Jevaltas, Donn Lord Excused: Katrina DeGroot, Danny Garcia, Agnes Payne Staff: Allen Davis Community Development Director Call to Order Mr. Ernst called the meeting to order at 4:00 PM. Citizen Statements No one appeared for citizen statements. Approval of Minutes-June 3, 2020 The minutes of the June 3, 2020 meeting were approved as distributed. (Hutchinson, Erickson) Discussion Regarding Wisconsin Rental Assistance Program with Representative from ADVOCAP Ms. Lu Scheer stated that ADVOCAP has gotten through 500 out of 936 people on the Wisconsin Rental Assistance Program (WRAP) waitlist. Currently they have been able to assist 197 people with the application. In the beginning they did not do a great job of pre- screening because they didn’t know what questions they needed to ask. The number one question they ask people is if they are behind on rent and a lot of people were not behind on rent when they first applied. People have done the responsible thing and are paying their rent using at least a portion of stimulus funds. They’re starting to see more this month than they did for June, May, and April. They anticipate larger numbers in August and moving forward. Ms. Scheer stated that ADVOCAP has spent out and committed $277,048 of the $890,000 available. They’re spending out 31% and remain fourth in spending out of the 16 organizations in Wisconsin. They just hired two new people for a total of ten staff, three of which are full-time. They have been able to assist two people from Calumet County, 56 people from Fond du Lac County, four people from Green Lake County, and 104 people from Winnebago County. She estimated 61 of the 104 people from Winnebago County were 2 specifically from Oshkosh. They reach out to 30 to 40 people per week. The application requires input from both the tenant and the landlord, so there’s a waiting period in between. The application takes about 45 minutes from beginning to end. Staff need to input the entire application into the system. They’ve added a number of landlords and they have 36 checks that will be cut on Monday. The landlords receive a letter detailing how the money should be allocated between tenants. Landlords had been receiving the check before they received the letter, which led to some confusion. Ms. Scheer stated that ADVOCAP has been funded for the PASS (people achieving self- sufficiency) program. Part of the conversation with applicants involves asking how they are doing with their bills. A lot of applicants were able to obtain unemployment, so they are doing okay currently, but they suspect that’s going to change. They’re encouraging eligible applicants to spend their money on utilities and insurance. The governor wants ADVOCAP to get this money out there as quickly as possible and they have removed many barriers for people getting assistance. They are also hearing that more money could become available. One benefit is that people are also receiving energy assistance who may not have known they were eligible. The assistance is there for everyone and they encourage eligible people to use it. They are able to help tax credit projects and their hope is that landlords for larger projects will reach out to them. Ms. Scheer stated that one outcome they were not expecting was landlords filling out the application for all of their tenants without telling the tenants, so the tenants never got on the wait list. It is a tenant-based program, one advantage of which is that landlords receive a check, but the program is about the tenants. They have also received phone calls from parents who have completed the application on behalf of their child who has signed a lease and is behind on rent. At first they had a number of tenants whose landlords were not willing to accept the payment, intending to move forward with evictions. Landlords accepting those dollars have seen the benefit of keeping good tenants in place. There are a lot of reasons tenants get evicted and they have continued to work with some landlords to share what they learned in a recent webinar, which is that tenants currently paying higher rents around $2,000 per month may need to move into apartments with lower rents. Ms. Scheer stated that people are getting the assistance and the turnaround time is improving. With the addition of two more staff, they anticipate being able to assist ten more applicants per week. They want to spend out by October 31st and they are on track to do that. They’ve heard from a lot of people in Oshkosh, but there have not been as many from Green Lake County. There have not been many from Calumet County because there are not a lot of rentals there. They continue advertising. There were newspaper articles in both the Oshkosh Herald and the Berlin Journal. They’re hoping to get more calls from that. She anticipates higher demand once unemployment benefits end. 3 Ms. Scheer stated that they’re not seeing a lot of need for food. She doesn’t know if the food pantries are seeing a higher demand, but they’re not hearing that. It is difficult to predict what will happen, but they are helping people achieve self-sufficiency by starting to offer opportunities and connections for people who have never needed to use them before. They let these people know that they can contact them if their situation worsens. The majority of applicants have questions about other resources and other ways that they can work right now considering they may not be back to work or their income has been impacted. Ms. Scheer stated that at first the question they asked was if their income had been negatively impacted since March 15th due to COVID-19 and people responded that it had due to child care costs. At first they did not think this was a negative impact because children were going to school, but when schools closed they had to use extra funds to hire private daycare. Child care is an eligible cost and they are assisting them. Again, there are very few barriers to people who are eligible. People who were ineligible because they received a lump sum for unemployment are encouraged to call for the next month. Because they did not finish everybody who was on the waitlist for June rent assistance, the state has allowed them to go back to May income to help those people for June, May, and April. If they’re helping with July, then they have to go to the June income. It is only one month, but it was three months in the past. Mr. Lord stated that he has a tenant who is behind on rent and is on the waitlist after being encouraged to apply. He is unsure what that means because he has not heard anything from ADVOCAP. Ms. Scheer replied that the tenant’s name has not gotten to the top of the waitlist yet and that this has happened a number of times. They cannot make a guarantee because they do not have all of the information yet, but landlords can call and double check to make sure their tenant is at least on the list. One barrier of paying the landlord is if they intend to follow through with an eviction anyway. They have helped six people who were living in campgrounds with their children because they were illegally evicted or felt that they were forced to move during this time and had no place to go. They’ve been able to help six families with the first month’s rent and security deposit and found an apartment for them. Mr. Hutchinson asked if a landlord would need to waive the other $500 for a tenant paying $1,500 a month for rent. Ms. Scheer replied that the landlord only needs to agree that they will not evict the tenant and that they will work out a payment plan with the tenant. Mr. Hutchinson asked if there was a period of time for the payment plan. 4 Ms. Scheer replied that each situation is unique, so it’s up to the landlord to work out the specifics of the payment plan. Mr. Lord asked if Ms. Scheer had any idea about the magnitude of the situation or how many people they are anticipating will apply. Ms. Scheer replied that when they had 500 people on the waitlist, she would have predicted they were going to spend it all out. She had no idea that there would be people on the waitlist who did not owe rent. There are under ten people that they’ve spent the full $3,000 on, but they have more than ten who are somewhere between $2,500 and $3,000, meaning there’s not a lot of assistance they can help with. Some people who they assisted in May and April received payment in June and are now asking for July assistance. They know that people are reusing it and that’s what it’s there for. Very few people asked to be put in this situation. They’re not finding large groups of people who have never paid rent. They’re finding a lot of people who never thought they’d be in these situations who are doing the responsible thing and paying the rent first. Ms. Scheer stated that she believes the utility moratorium was lifted last week and they have not been flooded with a ton of calls on that yet. They have some dollars for that, but not a lot. They have some other state homeless funds specifically due to COVID-19 called prevention dollars that will be released next week. They will have another $350,000 to help people with rent and more importantly with hotel stays because people literally have no place else to go. Mr. Davis asked for the name of the program. Ms. Scheer replied that the program is called EHACV and it has the same rules as their emergency housing grant program for the homeless except it is under prevention, meaning its one-time assistance. They have been able to divert some people into TB RA, or tenant based rental assistance, which is similar to Section 8. One of the advantages of having this located in their office is that they have a plethora of different funding opportunities and connections. She knows this group is large and kind of looking at affordable housing options and so they’re very anxious to talk about the future of that. Mr. Hutchinson asked if the $3,000 cap meant three months-worth or if it could be longer than three months if tenants are paying less than $1,000 per month. Ms. Scheer replied that she may have answered it differently last time because they were under the impression it was $3,000 or three months assistance, whichever happened to be the case. Now they’re saying it’s up to $3,000. For example, if a tenant is living in a one bedroom apartment and they’re paying $500 per month, they could help the tenant for up to six months. If a tenant is living in a four bedroom house and they’re paying $1,500 per month, they can 5 only help the tenant with two months. Mr. Hutchinson asked if the rules are applied consistently statewide or if Milwaukee might handle it differently than here. Ms. Scheer replied that everything is the same statewide. They have weekly webinar meetings that they must attend. Frequently asked questions are sent out every Monday. If they have any questions, they contact the same two people at the state of Wisconsin for the answer so the answers are consistent. The state is being as flexible as they possibly can be because they really want to make sure that people do not end up homeless. Mr. Lord asked if Ms. Scheer could summarize what she presented and put those facts together to show how much has been spent, for example. He also asked that she make note of any changes since her last update because he was under the impression it was three months of assistance instead of $3,000 of assistance. Ms. Scheer replied that she would put together a summary. The three months logic came from the fact that a lot of people live in Madison and Milwaukee where rent is much higher than it is here, so it did not occur to them that somebody could be paying $500 per month for an apartment. People are really being quite responsible, some even tapping into their 401ks to make sure they can pay rent. They’re happy that they can help people get through this a little differently without having to spend out everything that they have. Mr. Lord stated that at the same time, the unemployment rate dropped by 3.5% this month to 8.5%, so it’s going in the right direction. Ms. Scheer replied that they don’t know what’s going to happen when schools open. There’s going to be a lot of different situations. ADVOCAP staff were working from home and now they’re open to the public again, but only by appointment. If they enter a closed down session again, they’re not sure what that would look like. They’re not sure if they could modify their work hours to accommodate evening appointments. Weatherization could not come into a home late at night to work. Mr. Lord asked if many people are signing up for the weatherization program out of this. Ms. Scheer replied that weatherization works off a list that is based on this and so for that reason their list is increasing, yet they only have x many people to do x many jobs. Mr. Lord asked if the weatherization list comes from energy assistance. Ms. Scheer replied yes, but ADVOCAP works with renters and they don’t do a lot of 6 weatherization with rental properties because landlords are responsible for paying part of that, so they will pass on the weatherization many times. It’s different than a homeowner situation. Mr. Lord replied that you’ll find landlords who are low income who also qualify and then they don’t have to pay that 20%. Ms. Scheer agreed. Ms. Jevaltas asked what advertising methods ADVOCAP has used aside from the newspaper. Ms. Scheer replied that they’ve used local radio but she does not know if that works well for certain age groups. They had a number of calls once it was in the Herald because it is a free newspaper which is hand-delivered to households. A lot of calls come from referrals and landlords. Mr. Lord did an excellent job of getting the information out to landlords. Ms. Jevaltas asked if they had thought about putting up flyers. Ms. Scheer replied that they started with tear off flyers at local places like convenience stores, grocery stores, and laundromats, but they found that a lot of people aren’t going in those places and that’s not what they’re looking at. People have changed their shopping and spending patterns. Ms. Erickson asked if they are noticing an increase in leases not being renewed or people having to pay out for security deposits. Ms. Scheer replied that they’re not necessarily seeing a lot of that. They have connected with some landlords who will consider using them in the future because ADVOCAP is now paying the rent. Some tenants have had to move, but not because of non-payment. They are not seeing a specific trend in any of that. They’re hearing that landlords are taking security deposits on payments which may have been unusual for them previously, but they know people are having a hard time coming up with first month’s rent and security deposit. Historically with their homeless program, ADVOCAP found that 90% of landlords asked for first and last month’s rent and double security deposit up front, so ADVOCAP is paying a lot up front. She doesn’t know that they’re asking for that for anybody else, but that is because they are taking a risk. ADVOCAP does have money for the security deposit. If the tenant is able to keep their apartment, the security deposit goes back into their pocket. Ms. Jevaltas asked if people are on the wait list because ADVOCAP did not have the staff to process their applications. 7 Ms. Scheer replied yes. Tenants should be able to return the paperwork the same day because they can take a photo or sign it electronically. They’ve taken away a lot of barriers, but it could still be a week before they hear back from the tenant and then they still need to contact the landlord for verification. Shockingly tenants think they owe more than the landlord thinks they owe. The only dysfunctional thing is that there are some people who are calling now saying they will not be able to make rent in August. They instruct those people to call back in August. They can start some of the paperwork, but they cannot process it until they call back in August. They have to be behind in rent. Landlords have been very good about that. They also cannot pay late payments. Mr. Gulan asked if there is a deadline or period of time tenants need to return their paperwork to ADVOCAP by. Ms. Scheer replied that they have 30 days to return the paperwork and then they would need to reapply electronically. Ms. Erickson asked if there was any support the board could provide to ADVOCAP. Ms. Scheer replied that she is very concerned about tenants who have not paid their utilities. There are some who just don’t pay it all winter long. She’d be curious to see how much money is past due with the moratorium ending. It is very concerning because tenants will be evicted for that too. She is very concerned about what direction this will take, especially if kids are unable to return to school if teachers are diagnosed with COVID, for example. It is not her area, but she knows it will place a burden on parents. She doesn’t know how to predict what impact the schooling and employment situation will have on households and she is unsure what gaps they are really going to see. Mr. Lord replied that people will still need food and shelter for the kids to stay home. Ms. Scheer replied that even when accounting for air conditioning, her utilities have gone up because she has been at home with her family. Some families do not have air conditioning. On the rental properties they operate, she was approving utilities this afternoon and many have doubled in the last month. She has always been sensitive to the fact that there are a lot of smaller landlords who are often the ones willing to work with ADVOCAP and they’re also the ones who are getting paid, so she’s hoping that they’ll be willing to support ADVOCAP moving forward compared to some of the larger landlords who aren’t as interested in working with them. Mr. Lord replied that overall it sounds like it is going pretty well. Ms. Scheer replied that she’s happy with her staff. They’re had PPP dollars come through 8 ADVOCAP which is public knowledge. She is not worried about that and she will defend it. She does have extra funds from that because they cannot get extensions on their grant funds from HUD. For the first time in recent memory ADVOCAP can offer their staff up to ten hours per week of overtime for the next four weeks so that they can process more applications. When she was pre-screening, she was able to connect with a lot of people at home between 4:00pm and 7:00pm. A lot of people do not have voicemail setup or do not return voicemail messages. Applicants may not answer the phone if they do not recognize the number. They text applicants letting them know they are going to come up on a list soon. They pre-screen and work as quickly as they can, especially with tenants who have five-day eviction notices. The turnaround depends on the landlord and they’re having better luck with that. Landlords have received their first checks. Checks are paid out on Wednesdays so it’s a pretty good turnaround for anything that has happened during the week. Mr. Ernst asked if Ms. Scheer would attend the meeting next month to provide more updates. Ms. Scheer replied that she would be happy to attend the meeting next month. Mr. Davis stated that the next regular meeting is scheduled for August 12th. Ms. Scheer replied that August 12th is a very busy day. She is sure she can make it, but it is a very busy week. Mr. Lord stated that he would like to add that he tracks eviction notices and evictions are down 40% compared to this time last year, so obviously people are working together which is a neat thing to see. Mr. Davis asked if there was a limit as to the number of renters receiving assistance for Winnebago County. Ms. Scheer replied that there is no limit. They do not serve Calumet typically and two is not a huge number, but it is two people who are not homeless. If Milwaukee runs out of money, they will not take from this area. They have $880,000 to spend here and hopefully they can do that by Halloween. There’s so many other stimulus packages at the federal level that are being discussed, so they just don’t know. The state is suggesting that more funding will be available if they spend it all. Mr. Hutchinson asked how the $800,000 is determined. Ms. Scheer replied that they chose community action agencies because they receive special funding called community services block grant funds. Those numbers are determined by the amount of poverty in each county. One of the reasons Calumet, Waukesha, and Ozaukee are 9 not in a CAP is because there’s not a lot of poverty there. There’s no incentive for a business to take them on because it doesn’t cover the cost to open an office. That same formula was used for the $25 million dollars, with the lions share ending up in Madison and Milwaukee where there are higher poverty populations. They receive the fourth or fifth largest amount for Winnebago and Green Lake counties. It helped that there is more poverty in Green Lake, but it is also surprising that there is not more demand out of Green Lake. Mr. Hutchinson said he was surprised by that and asked if the poverty percentage was higher in Green Lake County. Ms. Scheer replied that they do not live on the lake. There’s really nothing there in the city of Berlin. Princeton used to be flourishing, but not so much anymore. They are rural areas in small communities with a lot of poverty. She is asking for trends and surprises, she is asking staff to be aware of that. She is assuming utilities are going to be the next problem, but she could be wrong on that too. Ms. Jevaltas asked if evictions are going to start happening at the end of the month and is ADVOCAP tracking who is being evicted. Ms. Scheer replied that they ask the applicant if they have a five day eviction notice. Legal action is aware of ADVOCAP and so a lot of people will seek that kind of assistance if they are concerned. Forward Services offering emergency financial assistance will direct people to ADVOCAP as well. Forward Services demand has been less because ADVOCAP has been assisting with rent, but they are referring a lot of people to them. People respond differently to crisis and some people do not apply until the last minute. She is not blaming them because she understands people deal with crisis differently, but ADVOCAP is able to offer problem- solving skills and compassion for what is going on. Mr. Hutchinson stated that through the CARES act, landlords are not allowed to evict tenants in Section 8 housing, tax- credit housing, or apartment building with a federally-backed mortgage until July 27th. Landlords cannot start the eviction process unless they provide a 30 day notice. He was on a call today with four different multifamily properties, three of which are in Milwaukee and one is in Manitowoc. There’s a list of people that are pretty far behind that have applied for this program and are still awaiting word. They’re thinking that on the 27th they’re going to give out this list and then in 30 days there’s going to be a bunch of people that are going to be evicted. Then to compound that is the expiration of the extra $600 of unemployment benefits at the end of this month unless there’s some change in Congress. So there’s a potential that after this month those evictions could increase. Ms. Scheer replied that they are seeing a lot more people saying that once they do not receive the $2,400 or $3,000 per month that they have been receiving, it’s going to be a big change for 10 them. They are seeing some people going back to work, but it is not always both in a two income household. She was just having a conversation with someone regarding homes for sale in Appleton and learned that the houses that can’t stay on the market are between $400,000 and $700,000. Mr. Lord replied that he talked with a loan officer today and the rates are 2.75% leading to bidding wars. People are bidding $20,000 over and not getting the house. Ms. Scheer replied that she has had a lot of interest in her property even though it is not for sale. It is a crazy time. It has been a blessing for those of us fortunate enough to stay employed through all of this. The future is very uncertain now. They are doing what they can, they’re happy to do it, and the think they are getting good results. Mr. Ernst thanked Ms. Scheer for her time. He will continue to share ADVOCAP information on social media. Mr. Lord replied that he will also share the summary he receives from Ms. Scheer. Adjournment There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 5:18. (Hutchinson/Erickson)