July 29, 2021

In June, New York was one of two states that hadn’t yet distributed rent relief, and today, it is among the slowest states in distributing assistance. In addition to the slow start, tenants have encountered glitches when completing their online application. Some errors have completely wiped out applications. Housing groups say the application process is long and overcomplicated and can be especially difficult for those with limited internet access or in homes where English is not the primary language. New York’s $2.7 billion in rent relief could help the 830,000 households behind on rent if they can access it before the eviction ban ends.

Major cities across the US are experiencing high office-vacancy rates. In San Francisco, for example, the commercial vacancy rate reached 15.4 percent, more than double what it was two years ago. Despite the rising levels of homelessness (more than 560,000 people nationwide), these offices spaces likely won’t be converted into housing because such conversions can be expensive and take a long time. “You combine this market reality with the large amount of underutilized land where it is cheaper to build a new four- to five-story apartment complex than convert an existing office building to housing,” said Alan Stephenson, director of the Phoenix Planning and Development Department.

Seattle created a Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) program in 2015 that required developers in more than two dozen neighborhoods to either pay fees or include affordable units in their projects. Of the 224 market-rate projects subject to MHA’s requirements in 2020, 219 chose to pay fees and five chose to develop affordable housing, which yielded 21 on-site units and $68 million in fees. MHA’s goal was to create more than 6,000 affordable units over 10 years. By that measure, 2020 exceeded expectations, and the city can now fund 850 affordable units.

Many Texans are at risk of eviction when the moratorium ends this week. According to a US Census Bureau survey from July, nearly 40 percent of both Black and Latino renters in Texas are unsure if they can make rent, compared with about 20 percent of white renters. Trerod Hall, an attorney with Legal Aid of Northwest Texas who represents low-income tenants facing eviction, says, “Many of the clients who are facing eviction do not know where to go, do not know who to reach out to, and sometimes have difficulty applying for these different programs, so they just give up.”