Housing GSO: HRA Greensboro Affordable Housing Plan

COVID-19 STRATEGY FOR INTERVENTION

The City should promptly deploy available funds to meet emergency assistance needs of low-income renters. This will be crucial to averting widespread displacement as eviction stays and unemployment benefits expire. The City should leverage existing capacity and program structures, and partner with nonprofits already engaged in emergency rental assistance, like the Greensboro Housing Coalition, to minimize the administrative cost and time to quickly deliver funds to households in need. However, emergency rental assistance programs in cities around the country have already been overwhelmed with applications that have quickly depleted available funding, highlighting the scale of the challenge and the need for additional sources of support. An emergency housing strategy will need to combine financial assistance with expanded legal protections. Though North Carolina state law does not generally favor tenants’ rights, any actions the City can take to encourage, incentivize, or require expanded tenants’ rights will slow the evictions process and help keep residents in their homes. Pairing expanded legal assistance for residents with funding to limit evictions will provide the greatest opportunity for limiting evictions through the recovery period.

Expand legal assistance

Align state, local and philanthropic capital

Emergency Rental Assistance

Expanded Legal Aid

Tenant-Landlord Workout

Mediation Options

A program to directly pay a share of tenant rent: • First-come, first-served program that targets households under a specific income. • Provides immediate cashflow for tenants and property owners. • Although payments are often made to landlords, no landlord contract or agreement is required.

A program to directly pay a share of landlord costs, in exchange for additional eviction restrictions: • Requires a contract between tenants, landlords, and city to share cost obligations. • Provides cashflow for property owners with possibility for a loan structure.

The baseline of expanded legal assistance is essential to: • Increase administrative and legal threshold for evictions, minimizing evictions occurring either without legal counsel or outside of legal proceedings. • Serve as an alternative dispute resolution to evictions.

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HR&A Advisors, Inc.

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