Housing Stability Endures, But Obstacles Loom Post-COVID
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Housing Stability Endures, But Obstacles Loom Post-COVID
By Tommy Herbert, VAMA Manager of Government Affairs
As of September 8, 2021, the Virginia Rent Relief Program (RRP) had distributed 386 million dollars in rent relief. The Commonwealth remains an example to the nation when it comes to distributing the vast reserve of funds that have come down from the federal government as a part of various COVID-19 aid legislation throughout the crisis. Though Virginia is on the right track regarding housing stability and the health of the housing industry, threats loom on the horizon as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Indeed, the ‘tsunamis,’ ‘avalanches,’ or other various metaphorical catastrophes of eviction have largely proven the product of imagination here in Virginia, thanks in large part to housing providers’ support for their renters and for the tools like the RRP set up to keep renters current. But eviction is not the only factor that affects the availability and cost of housing.
Many of the components that make the RRP function so smoothly relative to its peers are the results of VAMA member input and VAMA’s work with the various offices of Virginia’s government, who solicited and listened to industry input. We are very proud to have worked with these government partners to keep residents in their homes. Down the road, however, new problems for the industry and obstacles to housing stability loom.
Today the RRP remains well-heeled, with over 500 million dollars still to be distributed to support renters. Estimates for its continued survival range from eight months all the way to about sixteen months in the future. Current trends show that they are spending roughly 10 million dollars per week to shore up housing stability for today’s residents. But these funds will one day run out, as will the eviction provisions of the Virginia state budget which were passed by the General Assembly in successive Special Sessions of the legislature. Beyond July 1, 2022, Virginia’s renters will face the longer-term and unavoidable consequences of policy choices made during the pandemic.
Various eviction moratoria at all levels of government have driven many small and independent owners off of the rental market, depleting the valuable and nigh-nonrenewable resource of naturally occurring affordable housing. Unemployment and restrictive policies have devastated renters’ ability to meet their obligations. Local courts’ differing interpretations of extremely complicated and often-changing policies have neutralized the legal unlawful detainer process as a risk-mitigation tool. This forces housing providers to adopt more stringent screening criteria and lean toward shorter lease terms, both of which have adverse effects for applicants trying to find a home. These consequences come not because that is what the industry wants, but because of the conditions that we are forced to respond to in the law.
VAMA members have been at the forefront of finding solutions from the beginning of this pandemic when it comes to housing stability, and we surely will be at the forefront of finding solutions to the ones that threaten to face us in the future.
