Editor’s note: This article was updated to clarify that the federal rent relief funds distributed statewide were disbursed by the state government as well as county and city authorities. The updated article also includes details on the state government’s portion of the disbursements.
With the pace of rental assistance payments ramping up, state officials say they believe they can prevent the tidal wave of evictions that many feared would come when a federal moratorium on ousters ended.
From March through July, an average of $15 million a month was distributed to households and landlords to cover rent around the state. In August, nearly $25 million went out, representing a 60% increase in the monthly pace of payments.
Those disbursements represent federal money funneled through a dozen other programs run by counties and cities, as well as a statewide program handled by the Department of Community Affairs.
The department, which has received $989 million, had disbursed $10.3 million through the end of July and $17.2 million by the end of August. The state, as well as some of the other programs, have been criticized for disbursing money too slowly.
Christopher Nunn, commissioner of the state department, said the department was starting from scratch. “You get better at processing applications when you do more of them,” he said.
The department is collaborating with county-level programs aimed at preventing evictions while the pandemic is raging.
With so much money still unspent, the payment programs loomed even larger after the Supreme Court on August 26 struck down on a Centers for Disease Control order that had protected many tenants from being thrown out of their homes.
Despite the CDC moratorium, one in a series that started in mid-2020, evictions have continued. Sometimes, tenants were being evicted for reasons besides not paying rent. Sometimes, tenants did not know they could invoke the CDC protection.
And in a few places, magistrates did not guide tenants and landlords toward rental assistance, said Tonya Cureton Curry, the department’s deputy commissioner for housing. “Sometimes, they act like they are hearing about this for the first time, and you know they are not.”
The court’s action in late August triggered fears of a sudden surge of removals.
Thus far, most housing experts say that hasn’t happened.
The Cobb County Sheriff’s Office in 2019 carried out more than 2,300 evictions. In the first eight months of this year, just 10% of that number were carried out, according to Sgt. Jeremy Blake, a spokesman for the office.
“We have not increased the number of evictions since the end of the moratorium,” he said.
In Fulton, filings to start the eviction process are up, running about twice as high as in the same week pre-pandemic, said Sarah Stein, research adviser to the Community Economic Development team at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
But, she said, the data isn’t complete enough to say that’s a lasting trend or that those filings will result in removal of more tenants. “I would want to wait another week or two to see if these rates increase.”
Deb Anglin, chief executive of Hearts to Nourish Hope, said there are more applications for rental aid in Clayton County since the Supreme Court’s decision.
“People are more worried now, yes,” she said. “They are scrambling.”
Even when rental assistance is available, it is not always enough to head off an eviction, Anglin said. While some landlords are going “above and beyond” to avoid evictions, “there are some who say, ‘I just want the tenants gone and I am filing immediately,’” she said.
Whatever the course of the next few months, the rental assistance programs have been crucial in softening the pandemic’s economic impact, said Dan Pasciuti, a Georgia State University sociology who studies evictions.
“It may have taken a long time to ramp up,” he said, “but, in many ways, the programs have been a success.”
Rental Assistance to Georgians
Total appropriated: $989 million
Disbursed by end of July: $60 million
Disbursed by end of August: $85 million
Source: Georgia Department of Community Affairs
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