Recommendation to receive a report on the State Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) and adopt staff recommendation, Option B, relating to the implementation of the ERAP.  (Citywide)
Okay. Thank you. So let's go to 17. A report from Development Services recommendation to receive a report on the State Emergency Rental Assistance Program and adopt staff recommendation option B citywide. Thank you. I do have a staff report. This is a pretty important agenda item, actually. So I want to make sure that we have a chance to to hear the report from staff. And then I'll have some comments and then we'll go into our council comments. We have one member of the public signed up to speak as well. So, Mr.. Modica Thank you, Mayor and Council. This is a great opportunity to help out a lot of our residents through some direct tenant assistance. We will go over the options with you and Oscar Orsi will give that staff report. Thank you, Mayor. Members of the city council. This is a great opportunity. We've been awarded up to $28 million for additional residential rental assistance. We have before you tonight three options to present to you. We're recommending option B, but to Andrew Chang, our real estate project coordinator, will be giving you additional details on those options. Andrew. Thank you, Oscar. Good evening, Mayor, and members of the Council. This item is related to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program. Next slide, please. As part of the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplement Appropriations Act of 2021, Congress established the Emergency Rental Assistance Program and appropriated 25 billion in federal rental assistance. Of this, 2.6 billion is allocated for use in the state of California. 1.5 billion is allocated to the state for use as a block grant program. And the remaining 1.1 billion is allocated by the Treasury directly to local governments with populations over 200,000, including Long Beach. The state block grant has 14.8 million reserved for the city, and the city has already received its 13.75 million federal allocation directly from the Treasury. Next slide, please. The States are offering three options for implementation of the State and Federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program. Under option A, the city would transfer its entire federal allocation of 13.75 million to the state, -206,000 or 1.5% of the allocation, which can be used by the city for coordination and administration. The state would then run a central program with these funds that designated for Long Beach tenants and landlords. Under Option B, the city would request that state block an allocation of 14.8 million from the state and self-administer a local program. Up to 10% of these funds can be used for administration, and the city program would need to conform fully with state requirements. Finally under Option C, the city would not conform its director allocation to state rules and would administer a separate local program while the state serves Long Beach to the state program simultaneously. The city would accept responsibility for duplication of benefits checks between the two programs. And it's likely. Staff considered the pros and cons of the three options available, with considerations made for maximizing program delivery, speed and control, maximizing the ease and access to the program for eligible tenants and landlords, minimizing the local administrative burden and minimizing financial risk for the city, including the risk of recapture of funds by either the state or by the US Treasury. Excellent. Staff is recommending Option B, which offers the highest level of standardization across both federal and state block grant allocations and allows the program to be locally administered and customized within the bounds of state requirements for customization, such as deeper income and higher need area targeting. Staff also seriously considered Option eight, which would place all funds under the state's authority to administer the state, already has assembled a group of partners experienced in the administration of such programs with a stated program launch date of March 15th, 2021. Option C was not considered viable due to the risks and complications associated with avoiding duplicate or improper payments. Next slide, please. The recommendation is for starters, it's for the City Council to receive the staff report on the State Emergency Rental Assistance Program and adopt staff recommendation option B. The state is requiring jurisdictions to submit an expression of intent form by February 12th, 2021. To be eligible to receive the block grant funding. And this will commit the city to its chosen implementation option. Next slide. That concludes my presentation and staff is standing by to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you. With that, let me go ahead and go to the council. I want to make some just broader comment. And then I have Vice Mayor Richardson who who's up? So first, I want to thank staff for their presentation. I think this is obviously a very, very important work. And I think most importantly, I do want to thank all the work that's gone on to ensure that we received both this federal allocation as well as the state allocation. Obviously, these resources just don't magically come down to us without a lot of work. And I think our local team, as well as all the work that's happened both in Sacramento and at the federal level, have been really helpful to ensuring that these resources come down to cities and especially a city with like Long Beach, which has such a robust tenant population that really needs this assistance. So just to everyone involved, a huge thank you. I did want to highlight and I mentioned this at my at the state of the city, just the URL allocation and loan, which is 13.8 million, which I talked about a few weeks ago. Just that allocation alone would be the largest tenant assistance program that we've ever had at the city. And so that was significant. And then, of course, the state came in and added and more than doubled that allocation. And so what we're looking at in front of us is by far the single largest opportunity to help tenants with , particularly during this pandemic with with COVID and rents that we've ever had as a city. And so this is a program that will be enormous for us to undertake. I'm very supportive of staff and their ability to kind of go in to own the program to ensure that we're working with with organizations that can help get the word out, that we are working with associations, of course, that that are supporting tenants with landlords that are trying to get get their tenants to work with them as they're having to pay back, back rent. So just the whole process, I think is really important and I'm looking forward to the city's leadership on this. So I look forward to obviously getting regularly updated on how we're doing. It's going to take us, I think, some some time to get this program off the ground. And we're already started. But I just want to commend staff for all their amazing work and to everyone that's been involved in helping us get these funds. And so good work to already be able to help a lot of people with that. Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think I think you nailed it. I think option two or option B is that presented? So for a number of reasons. First, this allows us to set up scaffolding support for the front door. I'm on rental assistance here in the city in case we choose to invest in it again in the future. And that's really important. We place a front door on workforce programs, we place a front door on homelessness programs, and this is a great opportunity for us to have the program here locally. I also want to just acknowledge that the state's actually done a lot of good work recently with the extension eviction moratorium on the conversation on what happens with back rent investment into rental assistance. All of these things help make our job a lot easier as as council members so we can focus on sort of the broader recovery . And then the federal support I think is incredibly key as well. So being able to put a front door on it and deploy it I think makes a lot of sense. So I'm going to move that. We go with staff recommendation of of option two or option B. Okay. I have a second by Councilwoman Allen. Councilman Allen? Yeah. Assad. Thank you. This is just exciting and hopeful and and just long overdue for our residents who are in desperate need for our help. And I, too, want to thank our federal representatives for all of their hard work and supporting this necessary assistance for our needy families and individuals. This is a down payment on our future economic recovery, and this is going to help a lot of people who desperately need it right now. So thank you. Thank you. Next up is Councilman Mongo. Yes. Thank you. I'm very supportive of option B. I think this best provides us a position where our residents have a single door of access to all options. I think this is a great proposal and much needed help and I'm in big support of this item. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, it is customers in the house. Thank you, Mayor. I am grateful to have this funding made available to us here in Long Beach, to our tenants to be able to assist them. We all know we have just a tremendous need when it comes to our renters who have been severely impacted by COVID. And in many cases they are behind in payments and in severe risk of losing their homes. I think that this this is not only going to help our tenants, but it's also going to help our landlords who have been missing out on the rent. And so this is going to help a population that we've been wanting to help and that we've been, you know, advocating for, which is both our tenants and landlords. So I'm very, very happy with this. I think option B is definitely the way to go. And I'm like, man, Councilmember Allen said, this is definitely way into our recovery and I'm looking forward to supporting this item. So thank you again. Thank you. Next up is Councilman Sarno. Thank you. I also want to echo my colleagues in supporting option B when I think staff for their heart working on this as well and that I really the part that I really like about option B is allowing us to be able to distribute it, administer it locally so that we can work with our local community groups and leaders to ensure that we're doing the outreach necessary to getting it to the the relief that's so desperately needed right now to our residents, our tenants. And so thank you so much. Thank you. I do. I'm going to have to have one member of the public. Let me go ahead, make my comment and then we'll go to that member of the public and then take a vote. I just wanted to also just add and I'll ask Vice Mayor Richardson to add this hopefully to the motion as as a friendly or just a something for staff. I want to make sure as we do this, this is this is an enormous undertaking and really significant that we also are looking at doing some additional data collection as we are tracking who or who is receiving the assistance and how it's helping them. And I think that particularly around our our basic income and guaranteed income work that we're already doing, which we already kind of participated and started collecting some data. I want to make sure that when we do this, a tenant assistance program, this expanded program, that we're also within it, creating some opportunities for data collection or cohorts within this enormous amount of folks that are going to receive assistance that we can do some real targeted research on how kind of this consistent kind of monthly income is can help them. And so I'm excited about that opportunity. And I just want to make sure, vice Mayor, that we can add the guaranteed income piece as a data collection point for us. That I would appreciate that. We we certainly can. So I'll add that to my motion and I think we should. As we talk about the inclusive recovery plan coming back, we should be tracking based on average, certainly this. And Mr. Mayor, if I can clarify where we can certainly do some additional data and collection and take a look at that, I do need to say that the federal requirements do not allow us to run any guaranteed income programs as a part of this money, that that is an ineligible expense. But we understand the point. We can certainly do and look at a lot of data because we're going to give the people a lot of resources that they're going to need during this time. Right. And I know that I'm not suggesting we run it as a guaranteed income program and just to collect the data to understand, to help us with that, the broader guaranteed income work so that. Thank you for the clarification. Yep. And so and so with that, I have a motion in a second. Is there I think I think I have one public comment. Yes. We have Melody Osuna. Good evening, Mayor Garcia and City Council. My name is Melody Osuna and I live in the eighth district. I'm an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, or Lala. And I run a medical legal partnership with a health care facility in Long Beach, providing free legal services to low income tenants. Lastly, is a nonprofit firm that protects and advances the rights of the most underserved. Even though we have Los Angeles in our name, we've been a part of the community of Long Beach for decades. We have a community office in downtown Long Beach. Laffer runs the self-help and domestic violence clinics at the courthouse. And we have two medical legal partnerships with health care providers of the city. We work closely with low income tenants, and we see what works and what doesn't. And I want to begin by thanking the mayor and city council and staff for applying for the rental assistance program and providing it for the residents of the city of Long Beach. I agree that local control of the program is important and has the ability to help so many tenants. I understand there are limitations to the use of the funds based on state and federal guidelines, but I encourage the Council to consider the guidelines as a floor instead of a ceiling for the residents of Long Beach. We recommend that the city prioritize tenants at or below 50% area median income and specifically lower than 30% PMI. These tenants do not always have access to other kinds of safety nets and these funds could be the difference between staying housed or ending up on the street. We definitely recommend that the city prioritize access to programs because one size does not fit all. This can be accomplished by hiring multiple community based organizations based in different Long Beach communities to assist with outreach, community education and application support in multiple languages. Finally, we ask that when administering the program, we're working with the contractor who administer the program. But the documentation requirements should be the minimum needed for audit purposes, and that they be flexible with required documents requiring onerous documentation from tenants places an additional burden on many tenants who would be qualified for the funding but couldn't make it to their bank on time, or don't have a inkjet printer to print up their unemployment statement . Flexibility is key. I have a client who can get a copy of his lease agreement in time for the last one year program. He had COVID. He was hospitalized. He lost his job. And he's a bona fide tenant with rent receipts. But he didn't apply for the program because he couldn't get a copy of a lease agreement. He's still struggling to catch up on rent, and I'll be working with him to apply for this new round of assistance. Thank you. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes public comment for this item. Thank you. Roll call vote. Please. District. District one. District two. District three. I. District four. All right. District five. By District six. District by. District seven, six, seven. I. District eight. District by. District nine. High emotion carries. Thank you. That concludes the agenda items. We will now adjourn the meeting. But I do have a new business from Councilmember Yaw Ringa for an adjournment. Please.