Federal funds are key to preventing local homelessness

Aug. 5—LIMA — More than $1.4 million in federal funding has been dispersed in Allen County over the past seven months to help residents impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic catch up on delinquent rent payments.

"Your government is at work," Lima Municipal Court Judge Richard Warren said Wednesday of the aggressive approach local officials have taken to address the nationwide problem of tenants who have fallen behind in their rent.

A national moratorium on evictions enacted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has been in place since last September to protect tenants whose financial world was turned upside-down by the pandemic. That moratorium expired at the end of July, but on Tuesday the CDC issued a fresh ban on certain evictions, saying that evicting people could be detrimental to public health and would interfere with efforts to slow the pandemic.

The new ban applies to areas of the country with high or substantial transmission of Covid-19 and will last until Oct. 3.

Warren on Wednesday said federal courts have ruled the CDC lacks the authority to put in place a national moratorium on evictions, leaving it up to local governments to address the prickly matter of sometimes contentious tenant-landlord interactions.

The judge conducted weekly eviction hearings throughout the duration of the pandemic (and continues to do so) and has crafted — with the assistance of the Western Ohio Community Action Partnership, or WOCAP — an approach that is keeping tenants in their homes while also satisfying the financial needs of landlords as well. Federal funds are the key to those efforts.

Warren said that on average 20 eviction hearings were held weekly in Lima Municipal Court during the moratorium. At those hearings the judge required tenants who were on the verge of losing their homes over back rent to sign notarized documents stating that they (a) have no money; (b) have made the best possible effort to pay their rent; (c) have lost their job; or (d) would be homeless if evicted from their dwelling.

Not all tenants met those standards, Warren said, but even those who don't have managed to stay in their homes thanks to what he called the "tireless efforts" of Ramona Hucks, housing specialist at WOCAP.

"Ramona is here every Wednesday (when eviction hearings are held) and she's done a heck of a job. There is a lot of federal money available to help these folks, even if they don't meet the court's standards," Warren said.

WOCAP has paid out more than $3 million during the past 16 months to bring those tenants up to date on their rent and to help others with past-due electrical bills," Jackie Fox, chief executive officer at WOCAP, said Wednesday.

Since March of 2020 the agency has received nearly $3.6 million in federal CARES Act and American Rescue Act funds. The next round of funding — with more than $6 million — will have to last until September of 2023. Fox said more than 3,400 Allen County residents have been helped with rent assistance during the pandemic.

"We spent $1.4 million in seven months helping people with their rent," Fox said. "We've been super busy, to the point that we had to hire 60 additional staffers. A lot of people have applied for assistance and the need is still great. It hasn't slowed down a bit. Judge Warren has been wonderful in allowing our staff to intervene to keep people from being evicted."

WOCAP makes direct payments to landlords.

"The landlords have been great, and they didn't have to be," Warren said. "It's not always a one-way street, but the landlords understand the situation. We have zero delinquent tenants right now; everyone is up to date. That's due to the cooperation of the landlords and the assistance from WOCAP."

According to an April 2020 report from the Ohio Poverty Law Center, more than one-third of all households in Ohio is made up of renters. The 2020 State of Poverty in Ohio report published by the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies shows that in 2016 Allen County had the eighth highest eviction rate in the state at 3.8%, trailing Butler, Clark, Lucas, Franklin, Summit, Hamilton and Marion counties.