Preston Announces Inquiry on Rent Relief, following Mayor’s Office Abruptly Pausing Program That’s Been Drawing Hundreds of Applications Every Week
SAN FRANCISCO — Days after Mayor Breed’s Office announced a pause in the city accepting new applications for pandemic-related rent relief, Supervisor Dean Preston has announced a hearing on October 6th to investigate the decision and its impact on vulnerable tenants.
“Our city has gone above and beyond to ensure we have local funds available to meet the tremendous need from tenants impacted by the pandemic,” Preston said. “But after a decision was made to pause the program – at a time when hundreds of new applications are coming in – we need clarity on how and why this was made, and how to make sure we are not leaving tenants out in the cold.”
San Francisco has been a leader nationwide in ensuring local funds are available to meet the needs of the city’s renters. San Francisco was among the first cities to study the issue with an October 2020 Budget and Legislative Analyst report, which laid the groundwork for this body to come together to allocate $32 million of Prop I dollars in the 2021-22 FY budget for rent relief. The City continued to add funds for this purpose, and by March of this year, that figure had grown to approximately $52 million to ensure San Franciscans did not lose their homes.
When the state of California on March 31, 2022 stopped accepting applications to the state rent relief programs, the City launched its Emergency Renter Assistance Program with the local dollars allocated to date. Since its inception, the program has continued to accept hundreds of applications per week, approximately 300 per week in recent months.
The program now has more than 4,000 applications in a backlog that are waiting to be processed, according to the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development. MOHCD claims the pause is intended to allow time for the program to catch up on the already-submitted applications, estimated to be two months total.
“I’m concerned about what happens to those impacted by pandemic back rent during this pause,” said Preston, a 20 year tenant attorney prior to becoming Supervisor. “We made a promise to renters that we would do everything in power to prevent pandemic-related eviction, and we need clarity that our anti-displacement programs are delivering on that promise.”
###