Renters facing eviction given help through additional funding

FAIRFIELD COUNTY − Lancaster-Fairfield Community Action Agency has been working through the eviction court for years to keep people in their homes.

Now a new influx of funding will help income-eligible, COVID-impacted renters with past due rent and utilities.

According to Lancaster-Fairfield CAA Executive Director Clinton Davis, there had already been a home relief program in place to curb evictions, but that ended in September. Funding for the original program was through the Emergency Rental Assistance Program.

"We've been doing a big COVID-related home relief program over the last several years through the ERA1 funding and that ended in September," said Davis. "So, up until then we had been going to eviction court, working with legal aid, we'd be there every week. We'd be working with the house tenants and the landlords to make sure that if the reason the eviction was happening was just lack of payment, then we could work with them right now to find out if they were eligible for the program and if they were we could get the application started and avoid eviction. That was huge. A lot of times we could even get with them before the eviction."

Davis said that while this program originally ended in September, they are now able to take applications again due to additional funding coming through the Emergency Rental Assistance 2 Program. He said they've received about $2,800,000 for rent and utility assistance.

"We got this new round of funding and started up work at the eviction court again at the last week of January," said Davis. "Then opened up our applications broadly on February 1."

Southeastern Ohio Legal Services is the legal aid program that works with the Lancaster-Fairfield CAA. They provide free attorneys to low-income families as well as seniors in civil matters.

According to managing attorney for the Southeastern Ohio Legal Services' Chillicothe Office Michael Gibbons-Camp, the Lancaster-Fairfield CAA's home relief program has been very helpful. He said that without them most non-payment evictions are hard to dispute.

"We have been working really closely with them ever since we started our TAP program, which is the Tenant Advocacy Project," said Gibbons-Camp. "In Fairfield County, it takes the form of us attending court every Tuesday. We attend every week and give advice, help negotiate, or represent based on the facts of each client that shows up."

"At least 80% of the evictions we have, maybe more, are non-payment," said Gibbons-Camp. "If it's a non-payment eviction, the client doesn't have the money, they've properly given a three-day notice, there's really little that we can do in terms of beating the eviction. Having Community Action there gives us a real chance to negotiate actual positive outcomes for our clients."

Gibbons-Camp said that nearly half of the renters facing evictions do not show up to court. He advised that this is a huge mistake as many of the people who do show up are eligible for help.

"Maybe about 50% of people who have an eviction scheduled actually attend," said Gibbons-Camp. "Either they don't think they have any defense or for whatever reason they choose not to attend. For the people that do show up here, almost all of them are income eligible for us. It's pretty rare that we have to turn someone away as not eligible."

Davis said that these programs meant to fight evictions are crucial because of rent increases and lack of housing.

"We've really seen over the last couple of years rents increasing dramatically," said Davis. "The cost of rent since 2020 has gone up much more quickly than it typically does. We're seeing a pretty heavy shortage of housing in the county. I think we have a growing population and our number of housing units aren't keeping up with the population size. That means that rents get higher, but it also means that if somebody does get evicted and loses their house, it makes it a lot harder to get them back into housing."

This program does not only help individual renters facing eviction. Davis said that it helps multiple parties to assist renters facing eviction.

"So, the money is coming in once but it's really getting spent several times during the process," said Davis. "We get this funding and that's money that's going to the client, so it's helping them once, it's paying their rent or utilities, but it's also helping the landlords and the utility companies."

To conclude, Davis made sure to mention other programs that help with utilities and mortgages.

"This program is for renters, but we also have utility assistance for homeowners that is COVID-related for right now," said Davis. "And folks who are needing help with their mortgage can go to savethedream.ohio.gov and get help with mortgage there because our mortgage program ended but that one is still going."

Applications for the Lancaster-Fairfield CAA's rent assistance are available for download on their website at faircaa.org/covid19. They are also available for in-person pickup. Anyone with additional questions can call at 740-653-4146.

This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: Renters facing eviction given help through additional funding