ADDRESSING CLIENTS’ NEEDS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

May 13, 2020

Call to Action: Connecticut just received $11,439,547 in CARES Act funding. Call Governor Lamont at 860-566-4840 or tweet @govnedlamont and ask that this money be used for the Rental Market Stabilization Fund to help tenants stay in their homes. To get more information about the Rental Market Stabilization Fund, click here.

Call to Action:  Tenants in Connecticut are calling on Governor Lamont to stop all evictions indefinitely and cancel the obligation to pay rent. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic and economic shutdown, over 50% of renters across the state were cost-burdened, paying more than 30% of their income on housing costs. Connecticut leads the nation in income inequality, and this burden is disproportionately shouldered by Black and brown communities: nearly 60% of Black renters and 55% of Hispanic renters are cost-burdened compared to 43% of white renters. For more information on the tenants’ demands and to sign the petition, click here. To participate in the daily actions on Mondays and Wednesday, click here.

Important Deadlines:  Protections for tenants expire in 18 days. There is currently no extension of rental payments due June 1st, and no relief for renters, with the eviction moratorium ending June 30th.

What happened on May 12, 2020:

  • The National Low Income Housing Coalition calculates rental assistance need at $100 billion: The National Low Income Housing Coalition recently found that providing temporary rental assistance to current and projected severely cost-burdened renters will cost $76.1 billion nationwide over the next twelve months. Extending rental assistance to cover all current and projected housing cost-burdened extremely and very low-income renters would cost approximately $99.5 billion. To read NLIHC’s report click here. NLIHC estimates that nearly 97,000 Connecticut tenants will need $1,000 each month in rental assistance to pay rent for 12 months. To pay rent from May through September, the estimated cost for CT is $750,000,000. Connecticut is currently planning to spend $2.8 million. To see NLIHC’s calculations, click here.
  • Cancel rent: The social safety net is not adequate to assist tenants and homeowners who are low-income and those that have lost their jobs during the pandemic. In addition, news organizations continue to document the toll that years of discrimination and segregation have taken on the housing options for people who are African-American. The incomplete actions of state and federal officials to address this crisis could result in hundreds of thousands of evictions and foreclosures by late summer which would trigger a new wave of infection and illness. Federal and state governments can prevent this from happening by acting now. For more information on the looming threat of homelessness for hundreds of thousands of people who will not be able to pay the rent, click here.
  • Where low-income jobs are being lost to COVID-19: Southeastern Connecticut is expected to be the hardest hit region in the State due to the region’s economic dependency on tourism and service sector work with an estimated 12,491 jobs lost. Read more here in a report from the Urban Institute.
  • Mortgages in forbearance continue to grow: The Mortgage Bankers Association reports that, as of the week ended May 3, 7.91% of all active mortgages – more than 1:13 – are in forbearance. Nearly 11% of all FHA/VA mortgages are in forbearance. These totals are expected to increase when as homeowners make new requests for forbearance as May’s mortgage payments come due. For more information on this story, click here.
  • Outreach: Staff attorney, Pam Heller, will join the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence on Wednesday, May 20th from 1:45-2:45 for a Facebook Live discussion on current housing issues facing survivors of domestic violence. We will post details on how to join the training on Thursday, May 14th.
  • Outreach: The Center is hosting a remote training on the design and construction requirements of the federal Fair Housing Act on Wednesday, May 27 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. This program is registered with the American Institute of Architects. Architects will receive up to 6 continuing education HSW credits. For more information, click here. To register, click here.
  • Outreach: Staff continue to hold fair housing trainings and COVID-19 housing resource workshops via Zoom with social service agencies, direct service providers, and invested stakeholders. If your agency would find a short resource webinar or fair housing training helpful during this crisis please contact Shaznene Hussain, the Center’s Education and Outreach Coordinator, at Shussain@ctfairhousing.org

Still needed to ensure housing stability:

  • Help for tenants who cannot pay their rent.
  • Payments to landlords to allow them to maintain their buildings and continue to provide housing.
  • Bar on mortgage companies filing foreclosure complaints. More than 700 have been filed since the Governor declared a public health and civil preparedness emergency, including several that are banned by the agreement banks and credit unions struck with the Governor and the Department of Banking.
  • Municipalities need to comply with Executive Order 7S and make it easy for their constituents to participate in either a tax deferral or reduced interest program.

Resources for tenants and homeowners:

  • Click here to understand current tenant rent relief options in Spanish and English.
  • Click here to find more details in our tenant FAQ.
  • Click here to understand current rights for homeowners in Spanish and English.
  • Click here to understand how fair housing can protect you during the COVID-19 crisis. (Recently added Tagalog and Khmer translations to our guidance now available in 11 languages.)
  • Need to have your subsidized rent recalculated due to income loss? The Rent Recalculation Request tool can be accessed here in Spanish and English.
  • To sign up for our daily update fill out the form

 

More external COVID-19 resources can be found on our website here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR FAIR HOUSING RIGHTS IN ENGLISH, SPANISH, MANDARIN, VIETNAMESE, FARSI, RUSSIAN, ITALIAN, KREYOL, ARABIC, KHMER, AND TAGALOG, CLICK HERE.

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