SF advocates push to restore emergency rental assistance funds

Catch up quick: ERAP was part of a suite of policy efforts aimed at preventing displacement of at-risk tenants during the pandemic.

• The financial assistance, capped at $7,500 per year, can be used for back or future rent, move-in and utilities assistance or court stipulations.

Between the lines: The neighborhoods with the highest share of applicants and recipients are Hayes Valley/Tenderloin/North of Market, South of Market and Bayview Hunters Point, per an April report by the city's budget and legislative analyst.

• Meanwhile, Black tenants comprised nearly a third of all applicants and recipients — the highest percentage.

Driving the news: A coalition of over 150 community groups including the Homeless Emergency Service Providers Association and HOMEY is demanding that the city restore ERAP funding for upcoming fiscal years and make it a priority in budget negotiations.

• After federal COVID relief expired earlier this year, ERAP funding decreased by over 50%, even as thousands of tenants still owed back rent due to pandemic-related wage loss, Eviction Defense Collaborative (EDC) executive director Daniel Casanova told Axios.
• With the city's eviction moratorium expiring August 2023, evictions have returned to pre-pandemic levels with approximately 250 new filings per month and about 3,000 cases per year, Casanova added.
• "The degree that [ERAP] is needed now is at a much higher level," Ora Prochovnick, EDC director of litigation and policy, told Axios.

Zoom in: EDC oversees the city's Tenant Right to Counsel program, which ensures that tenants are paired with an attorney when facing eviction.

• Rental assistance is required to settle most cases and without it, tenants lose their housing and risk homelessness, according to Prochovnick.
• "It's cheaper for the city to prevent people from becoming homeless than to rehouse people," Casanova added.

What they're saying: While policymakers focus on long-term solutions to address homelessness, tenants need immediate assistance now, advocates say.

• "We have trouble keeping pace," Jose Luis Pavon, ERAP care manager at Mission-based nonprofit HOMEY, told Axios. "There's just a relentless river of people."

• "In terms of the public safety net and public infrastructure, this is essential," and yet the budget hold-up makes it feel like that infrastructure is "being sabotaged or slowly dismantled," Pavon added.

Part of the issue is also state law, which allows landlords to raise rents to market rate when a unit becomes vacant. "That means that with a long term-tenant, it creates a very high incentive to evict, because the rent can now be doubled or tripled," Prochovnick noted.

• The mayor's office did not return a request for comment.

Follow the money: While the largest funding source for the first year of the program was federal funds, the majority of funding is now from local sources, notes the budget and legislative analyst's April report.

• That includes revenue generated by voter-approved ballot initiatives, but Casanova says the absence of the initial federal funds — about $20 million — are already being felt.

State of play: San Francisco's rental market is among the most expensive in the country — its median rent of $3,413 is 63% higher than the national median, Zillow data shows.

• Since 2019, the Tenant Right to Counsel program has helped over 5,400 residents avoid homelessness, and 92% of tenants who used the legal service remained housed, Supervisor Dean Preston said earlier this year.