Muscogee County received more than $9M in rental assistance from COVID-era program
Tenants and landlords in Georgia are no longer be able to apply for rental assistance from the state as part of a COVID-19 relief program that sent more than $9.1 million to Muscogee County tenants and landlords.
The state was tasked with distributing an initial $552 million from the U.S. Treasury’s Federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERA1) and an additional $437 million it received from under ERA2.
Since March 2021, the Georgia Rental Assistance Program (GRA) has expended more than $830 million in rental, utility and other housing-related expenses statewide, according to a news release from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA).
Nearly 85% of the $989 million in funding has been distributed and committed in all 159 counties over the last year and a half, Tonya Cureton Curry, deputy commissioner of housing for DCA, said in a statement to the Ledger-Enquirer.
“GRA expects the current pipeline of pending applications for rent, utility and other housing-related expenses to exhaust remaining ERA funding,” Curry said.
Existing applications that were submitted as of Oct. 28 will continue to be reviewed and processed, according to a news release from DCA, and applicants can continue to check their application status online.
“This one-time funding has provided an unparalleled opportunity to shore up rental, utility and other housing related expenses for thousands of Georgians and their families,” said DCA Commissioner Christopher Nunn in a news release.
Slow start in Muscogee County
In Muscogee County, there was more than $9.1 million distributed to 1,650 tenants and 3,253 landlords, according to DCA. While residents and landlords could go online to apply for the program directly, advocates throughout Columbus were also available to assist with filling out the application.
St. Anne Community Outreach helped 65 clients apply for GRA throughout the last year and a half, led by administrator Kathy Gramling who took on the direct responsibility of meeting with clients and assisting with applications.
About 86% of the clients Gramling helped with their applications were approved and received $359,000 in funding with $14,000 of this money going towards utility assistance.
The people who went to St. Anne were 3-18 months behind on their rent, with half of the clients needing help paying 10 months or more of their rent. Those who were provided with relief received between $1,800 to $17,000 in funds.
While the program was helpful to those needing assistance, staff at St. Anne found that the application process was slow, especially in the beginning.
St. Anne runs its own rental assistance program as well that has a turnaround time of about a week to 15 days, Director Katie Byers said. But the GRA program took around six months at the beginning, Gramling said, and even up to four months towards the end.
“The Georgia rental program was able to pay more months,” Gramling said. “So, in the long-run, we saw very positive results from the program and saw 10 months to 18 months paid in rent, which is nothing St. Anne Community Outreach can do.”
Communication from the GRA was something that became a barrier for applicants, advocates and landlords.
Louie Robinson, a landlord who works as an advocate at St. Anne, has always utilized government programs and participated in voucher programs, he said, but was disappointed by the lack of communication as applications were processed.
Last year, Robinson had applications going through the process and struggled to get answers on their status and when he might receive the funds he said. While the applications were approved, the lack of transparency left him with a bad impression of the program, Robinson said.
“However, just because I didn’t like this program doesn’t meant I want to give up on government programs,” he said. “But a lot of landlords took that attitude.”
Robinson said he spoke with other landlords that were waiting extended periods of time for assistance and ended up withdrawing from the program.
Delays in getting applications processed eased up as time went by, Gramling said, with more understanding on how to correctly fill out the application and submit documents, as well as the GRA updating the application to make instructions more clear.
“You have folks, especially landlords, that got frustrated by the delay in payment,” Byers said. “But when I hear the numbers (of how much assistance was distributed) though — that’s amazing.”
This is money that came into our community, she said, and went into landlords’ pockets and helped stimulate our economy.
Other financial resources available
St. Anne Community Outreach has distributed more than $500,000 in financial assistance outside of GRA between March 17, 2020 and June 30, 2022, according to data provided by Byers. The program has assisted almost 400 different households with about 1,000 members in that time period.
After individuals who receive SNAP benefits stopped receiving an increased allotment because of the pandemic over the summer, St. Anne has seen an increase in demand for people needing food. The loss of the additional benefits coupled with inflation have contributed to the rise of individuals visiting food pantries, she said.
While Muscogee County residents can continue to reach out to St. Anne for food, clothing and other assistance, Byers recommends that people call United Way’s free phone and text messaging service 211 first to find information about the best ways to get help for their needs.
“We encourage families to take advantage of what is in the community,” Byers said. “Feeding the Valley has their monthly boxes that they give out at the Civic Center. There’s lots of other places besides us too, to get groceries and clothing.
Additionally, GRA announced a collaboration with Georgia Power that will provide $44.5 million in utility assistance to more than 208,000 Georgians in need, according to the news release. Residents can find more information on this utility assistance by visiting georigapower.com/energyassistance, and other housing resources available through DCA can be found at dca.ga.gov.
“I think that there’s this perception that the person coming for rental assistance is a homeless person, a lazy person or someone who doesn’t want to work,” Byers said. “But what we find is generally people whose income is just not enough to deal with the housing costs — including utilities and repairs.”
This story was originally published November 19, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
