The program, designed to prevent mass evictions, has gotten off to a slow start, advocates said. And the end of the state’s eviction moratorium looms.
When New York launched a sweeping rent relief program in June, the aim was to safeguard the state’s recovery from the pandemic by keeping tens of thousands of people who fell behind on rent out of financial ruin and in their homes.
The state set aside about $2.7 billion, the vast majority from federal pandemic relief packages, with New York providing some funding.
But after nearly two months and despite the staggering need, New York has been among the slowest states in distributing help. In fact, federal figures showed that by the end of June, New York was one of only two states where no aid had been sent out, even though the state’s eviction moratorium is set to expire in just a few weeks.
State officials said that they had started distributing a small sum — $117,000 — this month to test the payment system and that more funds were expected to be sent out starting last week.
The application process, which is primarily online, has been hobbled by technical glitches, according to housing groups. Many tenants have encountered errors that in some cases wiped away entire applications.
The payments covering back rent go directly to property owners, which means landlords also have to fill out forms. Many say it is difficult to upload the required paperwork, leaving applications seemingly incomplete.
Housing groups say the process is overly complex, requiring too many documents, and takes a long time to complete because there is no way to save and restart an application.
Still, many tenant advocates believe the program will ultimately prove to be a crucial economic lifeline, and housing groups said it was not unusual for a mammoth new government undertaking to encounter problems. Last year, the state also had a difficult time distributing emergency federal unemployment aid, with many applicants waiting weeks or months for a check.
But the ongoing snafus and the slow pace of the rollout are fueling worries that a flawed system may hurt the state’s economic turnaround and never even reach people most at risk of eviction. Those include residents of low-income neighborhoods with poor internet access, or homes where English is not the primary language or where people do not have ready access to laptops or smartphones.
“If it’s not done right, there are going to be people in New York State and especially New York City that are going to end up on the street or going into shelter,” said Scott Auwarter, assistant executive director for BronxWorks, a nonprofit helping people apply for the aid.
State officials said 160,000 applications had been submitted as of Monday and that technical issues were being dealt with as quickly as they came up. They acknowledged that other states got an earlier start, but said their first priority was processing applications from the most indigent tenants.
“We are now ready to safely and efficiently deliver billions of dollars in rental assistance to New Yorkers,” said Justin Mason, a spokesman for the State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, which is administering the program.
Under the program, tenants who submit a properly completed application are protected from eviction even if the case is being processed and aid has not been distributed.
But the need in New York, which has more renters than any other state in the country, is enormous, and it remains to be seen how many struggling tenants will actually benefit from the program.
More than 830,000 households in New York State, the majority of which are in New York City, are behind on rent, with a total estimated debt of more than $3.2 billion, according to an analysis of census data by the National Equity Atlas, a research group associated with the University of Southern California.
Tenant advocates and housing lawyers have been scrambling for months to raise awareness about the program and said many people may not even know the aid exists.
The state would not say how many households could be helped under the program, which will depend in part on the number of people who owe back rent and the collective amount of money owed.
Solanger Cabral, 60, who lives in a two-bedroom rent-stabilized apartment in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, said she owes $10,000 in rent. She couldn’t pay it for months, she said, after her daughter, who works in a hospital and supported her financially, got sick with Covid-19 last spring.
After spending hours on the application, Ms. Cabral grew frustrated because the online form — which requires proof of identity and residency, and a Social Security number, among other documents — was not accepting the information she was trying to input.
She was able to finish applying only with help from a nonprofit tenant group, but she was not confident the money would come through. Many of her neighbors who do not have computers or reliable internet have had difficulty figuring out how to even start an application, Ms. Cabral said.
“Many people, once the eviction moratorium passes, are going to be living on the street,” she said.
Generally, households making up to 80 percent of an area’s median income — which would be about $95,400 for a family of four in New York City — are eligible for the program.
Tenants must show that they experienced financial difficulties because of the pandemic and fell behind on their rent or are at risk of homelessness.
In most cases, the program will cover up to a year’s worth of rent and utilities, as well as three months of future rent. Landlords who accept payments, in most cases, cannot evict tenants for at least a year.
In June, officials prioritized applications from very low-income tenants — in New York City, it was households making less than $60,000 for a family of four. Applications received in July are being processed on a first-come-first-served basis.
The potential applicant pool is vast. More than 46 percent of the homes in New York State are occupied by renters, according to an analysis of census data by the Furman Center at New York University, a higher percentage than any other state.
And many of them have to dig deep to pay for their homes. Before the pandemic, more than a quarter of the state’s households spent more than half their income on rent and some utilities.
Still, New York has been slower than most other states in mobilizing its aid program. South Carolina was the only other state that had not yet sent any aid through the end of June, according to data from the federal Department of Treasury.
By contrast, California — which also has prohibitive housing costs and a high number of renters — has distributed more than $158 million to over 76,000 households, according to state figures published recently. Illinois has so far reported distributing roughly $172 million to more than 20,000 households.
State Senator Brian Kavanagh, a Democrat who sponsored the bill that created New York’s rent relief program, said one reason for the program’s lethargic start was because the legislation was included in budget negotiations in April. It would have been quicker to have done it separately and pushed it through earlier, he said.
“The scale of our program is much larger than many states,” said Mr. Kavanagh, who represents parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn. “But I don’t want to make excuses.”
Tenant advocates and housing lawyers also worry about how widely landlords will participate in the program or if they will decline the aid and pursue eviction instead. State officials say tenants can still use their applications as a defense in housing court even if their landlord did not participate.
Many landlords, facing property taxes and other bills, have been desperate for the relief payments, said Jay Martin, the executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program, which represents about 4,000 property owners.
But landlords, he said, have also been stymied by technical problems, the voluminous paperwork required and a state telephone help line that often provides incomplete or contradictory information.
“There’s no other way to spin it, other than it has been a complete failure,” Mr. Martin said.
Elias Sanchez, who worked in construction until the pandemic left him unemployed early last year, owes more than $32,000 for the apartment he shares with his wife and four children. He has had to dip into savings to feed his family.
His landlord, Mr. Sanchez said, had filed eviction papers against him and several of his neighbors this year.
He started applying when the rent relief program went online in June, but he was twice unable to attach a set of required documents. Then, even after the application went through, the system indicated weeks later that his landlord had not submitted the documents needed for the payments, Mr. Sanchez said.
“I’m worried about, like many other tenants, that we’ll lose our apartments,” he said. “If I lose my apartment, I don’t have any place to stay.”
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