Distribution of funds to keep people home lags, nonprofits blame Metro Action Commission – Tennessee Lookout

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Faith Klein of the Nashville Conflict Resolution Center advocates for a client to guard her home during a General Sessions Court session in February. (Photo: John Partipilo)

When rent relief became available in 2020 for Nashvillians at risk of losing their homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Davidson County nonprofits rushed to meet the deadline and handed out 10 millions of dollars.

Since then, only a fraction of current rent relief funds have been distributed, and nonprofits blame Metro Action Commissions technology.

In February, Lookout reporters followed social workers at the Nashville Dispute Resolution Center (NCRC) as they handled deportation cases in court. Davidson County has received millions in rent relief through the CARES Act and additional funds from Metro Nashville. United Way of Middle Tennessee oversaw all financial aid through a charity tracker, distributing funds to nonprofits tasked with reducing rents and ensuring all money was distributed before the deadline. November before the federal moratorium of December 31.

The rush to avoid evictions before the original moratorium deadline was stressful, but according to Sara Figal, executive director of the Nashville Conflict Resolution Center, the efforts were largely successful.

This year, additional rent relief funds were provided to Davidson County through the US bailout, and nonprofits assumed they would continue to work with the United Way.

Instead, the rent relief would be distributed through the Metro Action Commission (MAC), which had developed technology specifically to apply for the rent relief. The program, called the Housing, Opportunities, Partnership and Employment Program (HOPE), required nonprofits to submit their applications through a portal, and since the program was announced in January, Figal feared that rent relief is not being distributed as effectively as it was last year. .

On June 21, MAC released statistics and showed that since the portal opened in March, only $ 2.25 million out of $ 20 million had been paid.

Sara Figal, Executive Director, Nashville Conflict Resolution Center (Photo: Nashville Conflict Resolution Center)

It was designed to be a highly rational system in a pandemic with poor people who are beside themselves, who cannot think properly and do not keep immaculate filing cabinets with files. Sara Figal of the Metro Action Commission system

Out of a total of 3,774 requests, 1,113 remained in limbo, 1,605 requests were not considered and only 345 cases were noted as awarded or pending payment.

We were concerned that this would happen, Figal said.

In comparison, Nashville nonprofits were able to distribute $ 10 million to 3,800 cases by the end of 2020, while MAC had disbursed only a fraction of their funds to 345 cases by spring 2021. .

Nonprofit social workers began working on cases in February even though the HOPEs portal was due to open in March, but workers quickly found the application to be a complicated process. Previously, NCRC employees worked more closely with rent relief applicants. The Metros program required full documentation and broke cases down into a process “that turned out to be too complicated for most applicants, even those who are in a position to get help,” Figal said.

It was designed to be a highly rational system in a pandemic with poor people who are beside themselves, can’t think properly, and don’t keep file cabinets immaculate with bank records, she added.

MAC is doing everything it can to make the system work, but it’s a difficult system to use with the portal, said Eddie Latimer, CEO of Affordable Housing Resources.

Once an application was submitted, there was no indication of its status. Nonprofits had relied heavily on their relationships with landlords to prevent evictions. Since the bulk of rent relief goes to people below the poverty line, landlords with affordable rents have also suffered a financial blow during the pandemic. Since there was no indication of when the landlords would receive the rent, it was difficult to keep them waiting.

If we don’t pay them, they’ll leave and this affordable property won’t come back, Latimer said. All we ask is to bring more boots to the field to help deal with this looming wave of expulsions.

At the time of publication, MAC officials had not responded to requests for comment.

Metro Nashville board member Zulfat Suara speaks at an event in October 2020 (Photo: John Partipilo)

I understand the frustration, don’t get me wrong, and that’s why we say everyone on deck. We have to get the money back to the people. Zulfat Suara metro council member

Last Friday, the Nashville and Davidson County Metropolitan Council met to address concerns that the MACs program was not distributing funds quickly enough.

While admitting that the portal was difficult to use, General Counsel Zulfat Suara said some of the delays were caused by the influx of requests received by MAC, all of which needed to be sorted out to comply with changing and unclear federal guidelines. Priority has been given to those immediately threatened with eviction and those below the poverty line, and in trying to do so, things have fallen behind.

I get the frustration, don’t get me wrong, and that’s why we were saying everyone on deck. We have to bring the money to the people, Suara said.

Recently, the federal moratorium on evictions was extended to July 31, and Metro Council members plan to spend the next month coordinating events across Nashville to ease the process for applying for rent relief.

No more excuses, let’s do it, said Suara.

MAC officials have announced that additional staff will be hired and hope to incorporate help from local nonprofits, but Figal is not convinced that this will be enough to meet the urgent need for rent relief – at the same time. both for owners and tenants – in a timely manner.

I know that nonprofits with experience in financial aid will go out of their way to help. We just have to hope it’s not too little, too late, ”Figal said. “I also hope that Metro realizes that more funds will be needed to remove the debt burden associated with the pandemic and allow our workforce to start rebuilding itself on a solid footing.

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