How To Make 8 Percent On Money

The Alabama Housing Finance Authority has doled out just $22 million of the $267 million intended to help Alabama renters.

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That's about 8 percent of the state's federal emergency rental assistance, state officials told concerned lawmakers at a committee meeting Wednesday.

"The metrics that we need to consider is more than just the amount we've distributed, it's our efforts to move forward with this, to work with our applicants to get their information in as a part of the process," said David Young, multifamily administrator with the Alabama Housing Finance Authority told the Legislative Oversight Committee Wednesday.

As of September, the state has reviewed 71,000 applicants, and deemed 44,000 not eligible for assistance. Alabama paid funds to just 3,307 applicants and 6,730 are approved but are still awaiting funds.

Alabama Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, urged the department to hire more people to process applications.

"We're strangling these people. We're actually strangling them," he said of the delays.

On average, recipients were paid $6,600 for late rent and utilities and were awarded 7.5 months of rent and utilities. It is possible to receive as much as 15 months.

Young said changes to federal rules last month will make it easier to approve applications going forward, which he hopes will speed up the distribution process.

"Treasury relaxed certain of their documentation requirements for income eligibility that allowed us to streamline, more clearly, the application approval process to move applications forward more quickly."

About 42 percent of Alabama renters report fearing eviction before the end of the year, according to an analysis of Census survey data by Lending Tree. That's higher than any other state.

Michael Forton, director of advocacy at Legal Services Alabama, said his organization has seen its eviction caseload increase by 400 percent, following the end of pandemic unemployment assistance and the sunsetting of the eviction moratorium in late August.

"In most of the counties in Alabama," he said, "the sheriff just shows up, while you're at school, while you're at work, and starts throwing your stuff on the street, on the curb. All that stuff, all those childhood memories, the photos, the family memories, they're gone."

Since the program's inception this spring, landlords and tenants have reported struggling with the onerous and shifting documentation requirements of the state's application process.

Navigating bureaucratic requirements of distributing the funds have resulted in delays, said Young, but the department is aiming to distribute up to $20 million a month for the rest of the year.

Dev Wakely, policy analyst for Alabama Arise, said he hopes the department will pick up the pace.

"(We ask) the AHFA to seize this opportunity to make process efficiency improvements that could keep thousands of vulnerable Alabamians housed as winter approaches while the pandemic rages throughout the state," he said.

Meanwhile, tenants who have applied to the program and are facing eviction may run out of time to pay off their bills before they are put out of their apartments. Forton said evictions are already being carried out that could have been prevented by timely distribution of the federal rental assistance.

"The truth is that every single day, families who do qualify for rental assistance are being removed, made homeless, and suffering the consequences. There's something we've got to do about that."

Update: This story was updated to clarify the eviction moratorium ended in late August

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