Oahu has not spent ten million on rent subsidies as the state eviction ban expires

Honolulu’s government-funded emergency rental assistance program was preparing to reopen on Friday next week amid fears of a spate of new applications following the expiration of a statewide eviction ban imposed during the pandemic.

The rental and utility assistance program has processed more than 22,000 applications for Oahu since April and provided $ 47.8 million in rental and utility assistance to 5,947 households, said Patrick Williams, spokesman for the Honolulu Bureau for Economic Recovery.

But that’s far less than the $ 180 million federal budget allocated to emergency rental housing on Hawaii‘s most populous island.

Congressman Kai Kahele said it was crucial to speed up the process to get federal rental subsidies into the hands of tenants and landlords.

“There should be no evictions in Hawaii when federal funds are available to ensure renters keep their rent up to date and landlords can get healthy,” the Hawaiian Democrat said in a letter to Governor David Ige on Wednesday.

The rental and utility assistance program has regularly been temporarily suspended for new applicants when more applications have been received than it was able to process in time.

In some cases, the program resumed accepting applications and then stopped about half an hour later, frustrating both renters and landlords looking for a rent reduction, according to Lisa Kimura, vice president of community impact at Aloha United Way.

These regular closings are designed to give the city government and its community partners, Hawaii Catholic Charities and the Council for the Advancement of Hawaiian Indigenous People, time to process the backlog of applications.

Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi said the program was distributing about $ 1.5 million a day.

“We’re feeling pretty good at the pace we’re currently at,” he said at a press conference on Thursday.

The issue has become more urgent after Ige announced earlier this year that it would not extend an eviction moratorium that expired on Friday. The moratorium went into effect more than 15 months ago to protect tenants who defaulted on their rent after the pandemic-triggered home stay orders left hundreds of thousands of people unemployed.

While it has helped tenants keep their homes for the past 15 months, it has been frustrating for landlords who couldn’t count on rental income.

Starting Friday, landlords in Hawaii can begin delivering eviction notices to tenants who are at least four months in arrears.

A new federal ordinance that would freeze evictions in parts of the country that have “significant” or “high” coronavirus transmission rates could give some Hawaii renters up to 60 more days of eviction protection. But it’s unclear who could qualify for renewal in Hawaii.

“People are scared right now and just hope that they will stay,” said Kimura.

“Even before COVID, there was never enough rental allowance for the number of people who need it. Now that we have this huge rush of people who need it, in addition to the people in this gap area who are making too much money to qualify, it’s just getting really challenging, ”she said.

The Oahu Housing Emergency Relief Program is aimed at tenants with incomes no more than 80% of the median income in the area, which varies by county. In Oahu, the income limit for a four-person household is $ 100,700 a year or less.

In addition, a household can be eligible regardless of income if at least one member was unemployed for 90 days at the time of application.

According to Amy Asselbaye, executive director of the Office of Economic Revitalization, the average payout per household was about $ 7,700.

Each county has its own clearing house for applications. But the neighboring islands did not have the difficulties that Oahu had in processing applications, said State Representative Troy Hashimoto.

“There is no situation on Oahu where they don’t have enough money, they just have to process applications faster,” he said.

Hashimoto helped write legislation temporarily changing the landlord-tenant code to encourage mediation as an alternative to eviction. “It takes a lot of paperwork, but we want the applications to be reviewed faster so we can spend that money and get people the help they need.”

Hashimoto said Hawaii’s new legislation, requiring landlords and tenants to settle their disputes, aims to curb the total number of evictions while preventing the courts from being flooded with eviction cases. It is expected that matching suitable tenants with a rent reduction will be an important part of the equation.

Another hurdle in the distribution of the funds is that some landlords have resisted accepting emergency aid for rent because they do not want to get on the radar of the district government.

“There are a lot of landlords who won’t accept the money because of government and tax audits,” said Jack Slater, who heads the Honolulu Tenants Union. “There are so many illegal and untaxed rentals here and these landlords therefore do not want to accept the relief.”

Hashimoto said this could be a reason why the emergency aid programs for renting the neighboring island have received fewer applications than expected.

David Chee, a Honolulu attorney who represents landlords and tenants in housing disputes, said he was concerned about the housing security of tenants who make too much money to qualify for rental subsidy but are still due to bills and other financial obligations Have difficulty paying their rent.

“Unless the rental debt population is heavily geared towards people on less than the median income, then I don’t see the rent reduction program as robust enough to save everyone,” Chee said.