Regional and state officials and housing advocates in western Kentucky are highlighting resources available for tenants and landlords with the ongoing federal eviction moratorium — which froze evictions due to nonpayment of rent during the pandemic — expired at the beginning of this month.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued the moratorium last year in light of financial constraints imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. White House officials recently said it couldn’t extend the moratorium without congressional authority, while House leaders instead called on the White House to extend the moratorium.
Jenny Rushing, home care director at West Kentucky Allied Services, said some renters will be more greatly impacted by the expired moratorium than others. West Kentucky Allied Services is a community action agency that provides emergency housing services for those in far western Kentucky.
“There will be more of a need for people who are still looking for jobs,” Rushing said. “Some people still have not been able to get caught up from when they were behind because some of them were laid off, and they’re just now starting to go back to work, and some of them are still laid off by their employers because they haven’t fully opened back up.”
However, Rushing said there are many landlords who were struggling while not able to collect rent and will benefit from the lifted moratorium.
“They’re needing that income just like everybody else because they have to keep upkeep on their apartments,” Rushing said. “That’s kind of hurt them in the long run, too.”
Kentucky launched its own Healthy at Home Eviction Relief Fund (HHERF) program to subsidize rent to allow at-risk tenants to stay and for landlords to recoup losses. The program distributed $14.7 million in rent assistance to 4,140 households in 2020 through the Kentucky Housing Corporation (KHC). The program received $264 million in 2021.
Wendy Smith, deputy executive director of housing programs at the KHC, said Kentucky still has about $170 million available to aid landlords, tenants and utilities, and will likely have funding into 2022.
“While I do think the end of the moratorium is a big deal and will have a big impact, if money is the issue, we have dollars to help tenants,” Smith said. “We have turned away very few for being over-income or unqualified in some other way.”
Smith said the KHC is ensuring landlords are paid and tenants are up-to-date on rent because neither are typically at fault for financial hardships induced by the pandemic.
“Particularly for smaller landlords — ‘mom and pop’ landlords, if you will — that’s a concern for the Kentucky Housing Corporation, too, because a lot of what we call ‘naturally occurring, affordable housing’ could be lost if mom and pop landlords go out of business,” Smith said.
