Thomas Breen photo
UniteCT Director Dawn Parker (right) with Lt. Gov. Bysiewicz and Mayor Elicker.
As the federal eviction moratorium is set to expire this weekend, local and state officials gathered at City Hall to urge tenants who are behind on rent to tap into $400 million in pandemic-era relief designed to keep Connecticut families in their homes.
Mayor Justin Elicker, state Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, UniteCT Director Dawn Parker, and representatives from Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven (NHS) and Unidad Latina en Accion (ULA) issued that plea Friday afternoon on the sidewalk in front of City Hall’s Amistad memorial.
The impetus for Friday’s press conference was the imminent expiration of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) eviction moratorium, which is slated to end on Saturday.
To ward off a likely rising tide in evictions that will result from the lifting of the moratorium, the city and state officials called on city renters and landlords to take advantage of a state emergency rent and utility relief program that is still flush with federal cash.
That program is UniteCT. It provides up to $15,000 in rental aid and up to $1,500 in electricity payment assistance to qualifying low- and moderate-income Connecticut families.
Parker said that the program has distributed roughly $50 million of its $450 million allotment since launching this spring. That includes roughly $15 million sent to 895 renter households in New Haven.
That means that around $400 million remains to be applied for and distributed through the statewide assistance program.
“We will have money for a while,” Parker said.
Click here to apply for UniteCT assistance.
Parker said that qualifying tenants need to provide photo IDs, and qualifying landlords need to provide the state with the copy of a complete lease, a detailed accounting of rent arrearage, proof of ownership of a property, and a W‑9 tax form.
For $15,000 in federal aid, she said, “that’s a really light lift.”
ULA’s John Lugo (right): Urging local renters to apply for this aid.
ULA lead organizer John Lugo said that his local immigrant advocacy group has helped New Haven renters wade through the digital paperwork of UniteCT to apply for this emergency rental assistance.
“We’re making a call to our community to take advantage of this” large amount of money remaining in the program, Lugo said.
Bysiewicz agreed. “We want landlords to know that there is money for back rent,” she said. “And we also want to get the message out to tenants who may be concerned that they may not be able to pay their rent.”
Elicker and Acting Livable City Initiative (LCI) Executive Director Arlevia Samuel also said that the city’s CASTLE renter and homeowner relief program also has plenty of money left to apply for and distribute.
Samuel said that the city has distributed $196,713 in aid to 44 different renters and homeowners through the CASTLE program so far. The program launched last September with an $800,000 allocation.
Qualifying applicants can get an additional $8,000 in rental or mortgage relief through CASTLE on top of any aid they get through the state’s UniteCT program, Samuel said.
Click here to apply for CASTLE.
No renters who have applied to or benefited from these rental assistance programs were present at Friday’s presser.
Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch the full presser.
Is Parker unfamiliar with her own program? UniteCT and other programs require the tenants fill out paperwork, but often the landlord will fill out his side and a tenant refuses to do so. There is no recourse.
There's also a case of many people who did not need assistance but simply did not pay, they do not qualify for any types of government assistance yet the landlord is still out of pocket for many months of rent. There is no recourse.
There is the perverse nature of these grants which while helpful, this month are encouraging more people than ever not to pay than during the entire rest of the pandemic because lots of people want the "free" money.
Additionally the state has made everyone's life much more difficult by providing free legal aid to tenants. Their argument was that landlords have attorneys therefore tenants should have attorneys. The only reason landlords have a tourneys are because LLCs are not allowed to represent themselves in court in the state of Connecticut. Do you think that a landlord who has thousands of dollars of unpaid rent wants to shell out additional thousand dollars to hire a landlord to evict a tenant that will never pay his back rent and leave him with a damaged apartment?
The majority of these cases do not need a lawyer and are open and shut. If a tenant pays their rent, if a tenant keeps their apartment in good condition, if a tenant does not engage in illegal activities, then a tenant does not get evicted.