By Jamie Goldberg | The Oregonian/OregonLive
Oregon is reallocating more than $1.5 million in rental and utility assistance earmarked for residents in smaller communities in the southern and western parts of the state after determining that three local agencies weren’t on track to distribute the money by a Dec. 30 deadline.
Oregon Housing and Community Services, the state agency overseeing the programs, reclaimed $1.15 million in assistance from an organization representing Lincoln, Linn and Benton counties, $250,000 in rental assistance from a Jackson County group and $124,500 in utility assistance from an organization serving Douglas and Josephine counties. The money will be redistributed to local agencies in other parts of the state.
The state has not recouped any money from Multnomah County, even though the state’s largest county has been slower at allocating aid than nearly every other agency.
The reallocation of funds is among several steps that the state is taking in an effort to avoid forfeiting millions of dollars in federal coronavirus relief money at the end of the year.
The Oregon Legislature’s Emergency Board earmarked $60 million for rental assistance and $15 million for energy assistance in June to help struggling Oregonians. But that money has been slow to go out.
Approximately 60% of the rental assistance dollars had been distributed by November 9, while another 18% had been committed to specific households but not yet paid, according to a report from OHCS. An estimated 43% of the energy assistance dollars had been distributed by Nov. 9 and another 28% had been committed to specific households but not paid out, according to the report.
The money must be distributed by the end of the year or the federal government will reclaim it.
“We remain committed to not sending a single penny back to the federal government,” said Nicole Stingh, senior legislative and government relations coordinator for OHCS. “That is still our number-one goal, that all of these resources are used in Oregon.”
Reallocating funds
Shortly after the Legislature allocated federal dollars for rental and energy assistance in June, OHCS sent that money to 18 agencies across the state to distribute within their communities.
The need for the assistance is substantial. Data compiled by Multifamily NW, a rental industry group whose members include landlords and property managers, shows that between 12% and 15% of renters in Oregon have been unable to keep up with their rental payments during the pandemic. A survey conducted by Portland State University researchers found the situation to be considerably worse with 36% of 460 Oregon tenants reporting they owed back rent.
Last month, OHCS said it would step in if agencies weren’t on track to pay out the rental and energy assistance by the end-of-year deadline. While many agencies have made significant progress since October — when only 38% of rental assistance funds and 22% of energy assistance funds had been paid out — some agencies were still behind at the beginning of November. That prompted OHCS to act.
The local agencies had various explanations for their inability to distribute the money.
Community Services Consortium, serving Lincoln, Linn and Benton counties, had paid out just 36% of its $4.2 million in rental assistance and 7% of its nearly $970,000 in energy assistance by Oct. 2.
Pegge McGuire, acting director, said her consortium had tried to roll out an online process for community members to apply for rental assistance, but hadn’t seen the response it was looking for and felt it was missing struggling renters who might find the online form inaccessible. The organization has since been contacting renters directly, which has helped speed up the process.
But by early November, OHCS still felt the consortium wasn’t on target to pay out the money by year’s end. McGuire said OHCS asked that they return 18% of their rental assistance money earlier this month. They were asked to return over 40% of their energy assistance dollars as well.
“It was very distressing,” McGuire said. “I feel like it’s detrimental to our area that we’re serving, but I also don’t want to give any money back to the feds. We want the money to stay in Oregon and help Oregonians in distress.”
Melanie Doshier, support services director at ACCESS in Jackson County, said in October that the agency was under the impression that 15% of its $3.3 million in rental assistance didn’t need to be paid out until next June. In fact, the Legislature had converted those funds to federal dollars in August. As of Oct. 2, ACCESS had distributed just 10% of its allocation.
When ACCESS realized that all the money had to be paid out by Dec. 30, it agreed to return a portion to OHCS. Since then, Doshier said the agency has picked up the speed at which it is spending its allocation and has requested that OHCS consider giving back the money it returned. As of Nov. 9, they had distributed 45% of their money and allocated another 22%.
Other counties remain off track
OHCS also acknowledged in its Nov. 9 report that Oregon Coast Community Action, which serves Coos and Curry Counties, was not on track to spend its $1.7 million rental assistance allocation by year’s end.
David Navarro, the organization’s director of operations, said changes to the agency’s structure and leadership slowed down its efforts to launch its rental assistance program. But Navarro said the agency has recently expanded its outreach and hired new staff members to work on the program and is now closer to where it wants to be to meet the end-of-year deadline.
Stingh said the energy assistance program has been more difficult to roll out across the state because some utility bills are paid directly to local governments and federal regulations require that the money not be used to fill shortfalls in government revenue.
Stingh said OHCS has not recouped any funds from Oregon Coast Community Action or from three agencies, including Multnomah County, that are behind in distributing energy assistance. Stingh said OHCS is meeting weekly with agencies that are behind and could still reallocate additional dollars if those agencies can’t show they’ve taken the right steps to meet the deadline.
Multnomah County has been among the slowest agencies in the state at distributing and allocating funds, but OHCS has so far allowed the county to keep its money.
OHCS says that Multnomah County is on track to pay out its rental assistance by the end of the year, even though the county had paid out a smaller percentage of its funds — 24% — than any other agency in the state by Nov. 9. The county had committed another 40% of its funds to specific households, but not yet paid out that money.
Patricia Rojas, deputy director for the Multnomah County’s Joint Office of Homeless Services, said the data in the report was somewhat outdated due to a lag in reporting from community providers who are distributing money on the county’s behalf. She also said that the county has been ramping up its spending.
“There’s no question that we’re going to spend down this money,” Rojas said.