Recommendation to request City Manager to work with Development Services Department as well as our legislative delegations in Washington and Sacramento to report back to the City Council on the status of tenant rental assistance payments, and the feasibility of opportunities to expedite payments, and advocate to expand those eligible to receive rental assistance.
Kerry. Thank you. Number 28. Number 19, please. I'm 19. Communication from Councilwoman Price, Councilwoman Mango and Councilman Austin. Recommendation to require city manager to work with Development Services Department, as well as a legislative delegation to report back on the status of tenant rental assistance payments. Thank you, Councilmember Price. So I'm wondering if city staff is here and can give us an update on the tenant repayment program and where the bottleneck seems to be, and if there's anything we as a council can do to move that along, because there's a lot of people who are still waiting on money. Yes. Thank you, mayor and council members. We've been actually moving forward and making progress with our rental program at this point in time. We as you know, we had $64 million. Most of those funds have been either distributed or committed. We have about 14% of those funds remain that have not been committed. And we are working with the more challenging cases at this time, what we call the red flag cases, to be able to assist with the the tenants and the landlords. Right now, we've assisted approximately 4000 households, including over 38 households with utility arrears. So that's the current status and we'll be happy to answer any questions, additional questions that you may have. Sure. Are we on track to be able to allocate all the funds before the end of the month? And what is the consequence? If we don't meet that timeline? The requirement is to be able to disperse at least 50% of the funding by the end of the month. And we are on target to to exceed that at this point. And what does that mean? If we if we meet that requirement, then we don't lose the funds? That is correct. We were able to continue with program disbursement and keep. Please note that the state we've been asking the state to allow us to sunset the program and not receive additional applications. As and as of this date, we have not been directed to to to close the program, because we still have quite a few requests for assistance that far exceed our remaining funds. Okay. So explain tell me a little bit more about that because I don't think I understand that. So for this phase, we have already received more applications than we have money, but we're still continuing to get applications. That is correct. Our program. Okay. Go ahead. Now, so the sunset request would be for this phase. That that both the ERA1 funds have been fully expended. We're talking about the second phase or ERA two funds, and we are oversubscribed with the request for assistance beyond what our funding would allow us to to provide. So we're still taking the applications in, but are we letting people know that it's unlikely they're going to get funds so that they're not waiting on it? We put messaging both in our response emails as well as on our website, letting folks know. Letting them know what? That we currently don't have the funding opportunities to to be able to fund our programs and we encourage them to, especially for those tenants and landlords that don't have completed applications to complete them and submit this to us so we can process their requests and essentially a first come, first serve. Okay. So, so have we notified the people that are likely to get funds, that they're likely to get funds and they're just waiting for processing? Yes. It's it's also communicated to them that some of those requests are in process. So like I said, a lot of these requests are our red flags, meaning that we have to get more detailed information from the tenants and landlords to be able to address their particular situations. In some cases, for example, the request does not meet the lease contract amount, so we have to sort those out. In some cases we have multiple tenants and we're only receiving information from one tenant. So we have to sort those out. And again, we're assisting as many people as we can to get those issues resolved. So when we have the red flag situations where there's either missing information or a question about eligibility, do we say and but it's first come, first serve, do we save the money that they're requesting in a pot until those questions are resolved and then fund them? Or do we just move on to the next step? We we move on to the next applicant in hopes that we can help them. There's a priority requirement by the state that requires us to to do take certain actions for those lower income and those with higher incomes. So we try to process those that have lower income needs or where we have future arrears. As Council had asked us to do, we were also working with landlords that have multiple tenants that are in need of rental assistance to be able to effectuate payment in a timely or faster manner. And we're doing a few other things just to make sure that we can get to those cases. But we do notify them and we also have information on our web or when the when they receive information that they can check their progress. Okay. So you're in the best position to know this. We're not. But do you have sufficient staffing to get done what needs to be done by the end of the month? Because there's so many people who who think it's a staffing issue on our end. Yes. We've been we've been as you may be aware, we reached out. We are contracted our services to Yardi Consultants. They're helping us with processing applications. They've recently in the council approved a contract amendment to increase their staffing levels, number one. Number two, we've recently let them know that we need to make more payments before the end of the of the month. And they have switched staff and added more staff without charging us in order to be able to process these requests in a timely manner. Okay. So I just want to I know this is a request for report back, but I just want to make sure that I'm clear that we are on track to not have to give any money back from this phase of the program, because we've met the threshold requirement to be able to keep those funds in the city to help the tenants and the housing providers in the city. That is correct. To the best of our ability. That is correct. Okay. And then are we expecting any additional phases? There are several legislative bills, one that was approved and ones that is pending where we will be able to request and that'll be coming to you in the future. Meeting additional funding to fund our program. We're asking for more funding. Council will need to approve that request and that program will allow us to get loans from the state. And if the Treasury for some reason does not cover those loan amounts, they will be forgiven. So we're we're bringing that that request back to you and next month, early next month. Okay. And so on. The applications that we're receiving right now. But we're letting them know we've received your application, but it doesn't look like we're going to have the funds to be able to fulfill this application or reimburse this application. Can we save those for the next phase if we should get that funding? Or is it a whole new application? No, no. We are going to use the same process, the same documentation, and we will be working with those individuals to make sure that their applications get completed and with the hopes of getting that additional funds to be able to assist them. Okay. Okay. So I'm grateful that the report back is coming. And I would love to see the specific language embedded in the report that we give to people who are applying. We don't think we have money for them yet, but we expect that we might have money in the future. I would love to see what that language looks like, if possible. If you could just embedded into the TFF on that, that would be really great. Will do. Thank you. Councilwoman Austin. Thank you so much. And I appreciate the the item and the clarification. Thank you. Councilmember Price and staff for clarification on this matter. Looking at the item, are we still looking at the feasibility of expanding eligibility based on the staff report that we've just heard? I mean, that could be, I guess, in the TFF. I just I know this question is on the spot, but do we have an estimate in terms of how many households have been, I guess, service through this this. Yes. 64,000 households have been assisted by this program. 4000. 4000. Right. Thank you so much. Council members who were not. Thank you. And I'd also like to thank Councilman Price for bringing this very important item forward. I have a question. It's completely anecdotal. It's happened today. So we had a 4 to 6 resident who applied in October. So almost six months supposedly in the queue. But we learned today that the landlord had not filled out his part of the application. I'm sure. Maybe. Well, I shouldn't say I'm sure. Possibly there's a way to check that online for the applicant. But if not, how do we get the word out that, you know, don't waste time in the queue if your landlord signed on board? Thank you. And Councilmember, that can get a little bit more complicated. We have case managers, both internal staff, as well as our consultant that they can reach out to. If you can provide the information to us, we can certainly find out the status. And there are some landlords that do not want to participate in the program, in which case there is a different option that we can afford to the tenants to pay them directly, but they have to then show us proof that they've actually paid their landlord. And that's been very challenging to to do that process. So it's not necessarily one that we favor, but it does help them. But again, it's there's been some challenges with that effort. Okay. Thank you for that response. But I'm just thinking, if there's a way we can get the word out or somehow that you have to have your landlord on board, I mean, maybe it seems obvious in the application, but here's one person who didn't know that. So that looks like a pretty logical improvement. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Pryce. Councilman Superhot spurred the opposite question for me, which is can the housing provider or the landlord? I know currently it's the tenant that has to apply. Right. Is there any scenario where the tenant with a housing provider or landlord can apply? And is that something that might be an alternative for the next round of funding? Councilmember Right now, and I think that council had previously asked us to look into potential tenant landlord and potential landlord requests based upon previous conversations with the state. They would not allow us to do that. The program is established for the tenant and the tenant alone, and with that the landlord has to participate. So that's certainly something that we could explore in the. Yeah, that'd be great. And I appreciate, I know we've talked about this issue, but this is not one of those situations that's like a point in time and it stays static. There's been a lot of changes. And and the fact that we get so many questions shows that there's a lot of movement, especially in things that we've asked you to look into that maybe haven't come to fruition. So I really appreciate the update. It helps provide information and I think the report back will be instrumental for us in terms of communicating what the city is doing. And I look forward to that. I just I know the staff is working on this, but I think to the extent that we can help be a part of the solution in terms of eliminating unnecessary bureaucratic processes not placed by us. Right. But kind of, you know, dictated to us that we have to comply with. So to the extent that we can streamline, because there are people who have, you know, the money that's owed to them, that's like in the six figures. And for people that have a mortgage to pay on properties that they're renting out, that's our incredible burden. And so what we don't want is a lot of small housing providers to have to default and get taken over by larger conglomerates that maybe don't have as big of a footprint or personal interest in the city. So thank you. Thank you. I'll just add a couple of thoughts. Thank you for bringing this up. And Oscar, I'm just. So the last report, January 28th, it was a lot of good information here. The response to keep might be Charles presentation. A few things to note in this report. It says all funds are expected to be dispersed by April 20, 22, so that's still on track. It was, again, we've experienced the red flag cases that are taking a little bit more time to spend. So that actually has slowed us down more than we anticipated. Okay. Well, you think you'll meet? You think you'll meet your goal? Yes. We like I said, we're devoting additional resources to be able to disperse the funds. Certainly. I also know we requested an online dashboard. Where are we? The report says it was recommended. I checked online when it was originally last, but I check. Right now. I don't see it. I it should be on there. I'll. I'll take a look for you, and I'll send that your way. I saw it when it originally came up and I was happy with a lot of the questions we got tonight were the types of answers we saw exactly where we were in terms of disbursement. Let's make sure that that dashboard is circulated widely so people can get that information. I know one of the recommendations was also some of the things brought up tonight around can the landlord or can the tenant initiate? And you explore that. And we talked about there are some, you know, some restrictions in the state with the state funding less or less so than the federal funding. And so I think, you know, continuing, if we get additional tranche to get feedback like we discussed before, that flexibility is important. I also think the five CEOs I want to thank, the five community based organizations, part of IDA Housing, Long Beach Point, Latino Association, UCC and YMCA of Greater Long Beach. They helped with some of those out, you know, hard to reach buildings and tenants. And so all of those we've learned as we move along with this program and I know it's going to be you have some very, very difficult ones. And I know I know that, you know, some folks may think that it's the fault of the city, but I actually have seen you do some incredible work. And my hope is that we get additional funds to help more people. But I think this was a great discussion to continue to have and I look forward to the report back. Members, please cast your vote. That was any public comment. I think we were withdrew public comment, right? There's no public comment. Okay, members, please cast your vote. Casual events are. The motion is. Carried.