Recommendation to adopt resolution to request and accept State Rental Assistance Cashflow Loan Program funds to allow the City of Long Beach Emergency Rental Assistance Program to continue, without interruption, assisting eligible renters who have experienced economic impacts due to the COVID-19 pandemic; and Authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all necessary documents with the California Department of Housing and Community Development to receive State Rental Assistance Cashflow Loan funds, and execute the Standard Agreement necessary to implement and comply with related State regulations. (Citywide)
Thank you. Next is 22. Report from Development Services recommendation to adopt a resolution to allow the City of Long Beach Emergency Rental Assistance Program to continue assisting eligible renters and execute all necessary documents with the California Department of Housing and Community Development to implement and comply with related state regulations citywide. Thank you. I think there's a staff report on this. Yes, there is. I'll turn it over to, of course, he and his team. Thank you. Council mayor and council members. Tonight, you'll hear a longer presentation, but I'd like to introduce this item. We've had a. Phenomenal success with the implementation of the Long Beach Emergency. Rental Assistance. Program. To date, we have issued over $50 million. In assistance and assisted over. 6500 applicants for this program. We are now winding down the program and. Are asking the Council to adopt a resolution to request and accept the state rental assistance cash for loan program, which will allow us to continue this effort and help assist those that we still have not been able to. And with that, I'd like to have hand this over to Patrick. You're our Housing and Neighborhood Services Bureau manager. Thank you. Thank you, Oscar. Good evening, Mayor, vice mayor and City Council. In 2020, the Federal Consolidated Appropriation Act authorized the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, known as ERAP, followed by the state's SB 91, which established the state's program for administering its share of funds. The state offered to run a rental assistance program on behalf of the city, which was called Option A, or to provide funding to the city for it to run the program itself. That was option B and the city of Long Beach chose option B. The city received $30.2 million in combined federal and state grants referred to as ERA one, ERA one. And in March 2021, the American Rescue Plan established an expansion of Erap, which is referred to as ERA two and was administered similar to ERA one. With that program, the city received $34.3 million and ERA two funds. In total, $64.5 million in the city is expected to fully obligate these funds by the end of June 2022. The Federal Government. The Treasury has allowed us to apply for funds that were clawed back from agencies that did not do as well as we have done with our program. And those are called recapture funds. So we're working on that. But in the meantime, the State Senate Bill 115 established the State Rental Assistance Cash Loan Program, providing short term cash flow loans for eligible option B jurisdictions participating in the ERAP program. Option B's and cities, including Long Beach, will be able to receive cash flow loan payments in monthly installments. The amount of the state loan program will be determined by the amount indicated in the request for reallocated funds from ERA one submitted to the Treasury. The city has submitted three separate requests totaling $28 million to the Treasury for estimated access obligations based on prior erap monthly expenditure averages and using a formula that the Treasury provided to us. If approved, the loan funds will allow the city to continue to provide rental and utility arrears payments to eligible applicants that submitted an ERAP application before the March 31st, 2022 deadline. Thank. Balloon is available to. All option B cities, including Long Beach, who have obligated and or spent all allocated federal funds down to a zero balance and can prove a need for additional funds if the city does not receive the full amount of reallocated funds that was requested. By June 30th. 2023. The sister state will. Forgive the city's loan amount up to the amount not covered by the federal funds. Amounts allocated to the State Department of Housing and Community Development under SB 15 will not accrue interest. A sorry program. Expenditures must be for complete eligible applications submitted by households that were received on or before March 31st, 2022, and includes an administrative cost to run the program. No future rents can be paid through this program. So here again, we're here seeking the council's approval to adopt a resolution to request and accept state rental assistance cashflow loan program funds. That's a mouthful to allow the Long Beach Erap program to continue and authorize the city manager to execute all necessary documents with the State Department of Housing and Community Development. That concludes my presentation. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Ranga. Just for support of this. I think it's a good program that we need to support, and I'm very glad to be on the on the second of the motion. Thank you, Councilman Ciro. Yeah. Thank you for the presentation. I just had a question about I think it's really important that we continue to get the assistance we need from the state. And I was just wondering, how about how much are we trying to recover to ensure that we're able to fulfill all of the applicants that submitted their application? Councilwoman were we're applying for $28 million through this round, but we will have another opportunity to apply for additional funding equal to or even greater to that amount. So we could end up with another 50 to $60 million to use for the program. Yeah, but I think that one of the things I'm a little I needed clarity is that this is for only exist for those who have submitted. There's no new applicants that are now accepted. Right. It's to fulfill in this program. That is correct. The program was sunset. On the end of March. And we are trying to get. Those that have already applied to assist them. Potential future programs may. Allow us. To reopen the program and allow others to to apply. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just add, I want to just thank and congratulate staff on continuing to figure out how to deploy more resources, keep people in their homes. That's what this is about. We know that significant population in our city are feeling increased impacts from COVID 19, particularly families that make below 70,000 a year. They're the ones that are impacted by inflation, rising costs of housing, rising cost of fuel prices, all of those things. And so whatever we can do to deploy more resources to keep people in their homes, I think is good for our city. And so is there any public comment on this item saying, nonmembers, please cast your vote? Motion is carried.