Rent aid program covering the bulk of Nebraska hits a snag as it sunsets | Nebraska Examiner

OMAHA — Tanya Gifford of Carry Up Sarpy County was thrilled this summer time to study that her nonprofit was awarded $1 million to assist push back homelessness in a group nonetheless pained by the pandemic.

However her cheer, and that of about 50 different nonprofits throughout Nebraska, was short-lived.

State officers knowledgeable the bunch final week {that a} cumulative $15.5 million in awards as soon as headed to their companies for housing stability packages wouldn’t arrive in spite of everything.

Amid confusion over deadlines, the state should now return the would-be funds for Carry Up Sarpy and others to the U.S. Treasury.

“We’re dissatisfied,” stated Gifford. “The million-dollar grant was big for us. We’re shedding the potential to assist so many households.”

‘Welfare state’

She views the loss as the newest blow within the often-contentious saga of the federal Emergency Rental Help Program that Gov. Pete Ricketts’ administration has managed for all however two of Nebraska’s 93 counties.

A crescendo in controversy got here earlier this yr when Ricketts rejected a second spherical of the emergency hire help, regardless of the Legislature’s try and power him to just accept the $120 million. The federal authorities had set that cash apart for struggling renters within the state’s 91 smaller and rural counties. 

Ricketts maintained that the worst of the COVID storm was over and that Nebraska ought to guard towards changing into a “welfare state.”

Lawmakers couldn’t muster sufficient votes to override the governor’s veto.

By then, the Ricketts administration had already accepted and began to disperse the primary spherical of ERAP, although at a sluggish tempo. 

(Douglas and Lancaster Counties, in addition to the Cities of Omaha and Lincoln, apply for and oversee their very own streams of ERAP funding, individually from the state program.) 

Of the state’s first spherical of $158 million for the 91 counties, the Ricketts administration ended up shifting about $97 million, largely to Omaha and Lincoln, saying the state’s bigger city metropolitan communities had better demand.

Fund distribution replace

As of this week, in keeping with the Governor’s Workplace, the state rental help program:

* Distributed a complete of about $26 million to eligible renters or their landlords within the state’s 91 smaller counties. 

* Paid about $10.4 million to Deloitte, an audit and danger administration consulting agency, for administrative assist associated to this system.

* Had about $20 million remaining.

It was from the unspent $20 million that the $15.5 million for housing stability companies was to come back. Potential makes use of, the Nebraska Division of Well being and Human Companies informed group companies vying for the funds, excluded direct hire help however allowed a variety from eviction diversion packages to housing-related companies for survivors of home abuse.

After initially contacting the chosen organizations in mid-August to inform them they might obtain a portion of the funding, state officers final week held a digital assembly and knowledgeable them the cash as an alternative needed to be returned to the federal Treasury.

Aides to the governor blamed confusion on “late” steerage shifts by the Treasury that required the state program not solely to assign — however truly to spend — the entire first funding spherical by Sept. 30, 2022.

Use it or lose it

“These late adjustments will eradicate the flexibility for the State to enter into $15.5 million in contractual obligations with housing stability suppliers,” Ricketts spokeswoman Alex Reuss informed the Nebraska Examiner. 

Moreover, she stated, certified renters and landlords who had utilized and basically have been pre-approved for emergency hire and utility help via December wouldn’t get that help past Sept. 30.

Nebraska Finances Administrator Lee Will had reached out to Treasury officers to try to treatment the state of affairs. However a letter from the federal company’s Chief Restoration Officer, Jacob Leibenluft, laid out a chronology of steerage and correspondence that implies the state shouldn’t have been stunned by the Sept. 30 use-it-or-lose-it deadline. 

Leibenluft, within the letter to Will, provided what a number of Nebraska housing nonprofits view as an answer. He stated the state may nonetheless settle for a part of the second spherical of rental help, which the governor for months has resisted.

“The State of Nebraska may readily take motion to keep away from any hurt to renters or landlords that might come up,” Liebenluft stated. As an alternative of the total $120 million, although, a lesser $48 million now could be obtainable in that second spherical.

“Treasury stands prepared to offer the State of Nebraska as much as $48 million in obtainable award funds … to fund the potential hire and extra housing stability companies,” Leibenluft stated.

To that, the governor’s spokesperson reiterated Ricketts’ earlier stance.

The matter “was mentioned and debated extensively in the course of the legislative session,” Reuss stated. ”The state won’t be in search of the second spherical of funding.”

‘Cumbersome’ portal

Carolyn Pospisil of Housing Basis for Sarpy County is pissed off by the circumstances.

The company she directs had deliberate to make use of a $230,000 grant to reconnect with about 900 folks that her company is aware of had tapped emergency hire help.

Earlier than the Housing Basis discovered that the award wouldn’t be forthcoming in spite of everything, it had employed two staffers to create a brand new outreach program providing funds counseling and different companies to make sure that households keep afloat financially.

Pospisil challenged the governor’s assertion that, based mostly on the low quantity of rental help dispersed by the state, Nebraskans don’t want the assistance. 

She contends that lackluster participation had extra to do with a ”cumbersome and complex” portal system that state vendor Deloitte created to vet candidates.

Pospisil stated that instead, her group selected to show to philanthropic {dollars}, about $1 million, to cowl emergency hire wants for Sarpy County residents. That non-public stream of funds has run dry, she stated.

Erin Feichtinger, coverage director of Ladies’s Fund of Omaha, for months has been advocating for added rental help funds. She sees one other opening within the Treasury Division’s message to Will.

She says struggling residents of the 91 smaller and rural counties of Nebraska stand to be harm most.

“There’s a easy resolution to the issue — there at all times has been,” she stated.

Housing crunch amplifies stress

In central Nebraska, Liz Mayfield of Grand Island-based Hope Harbor stated an absence of public transportation and different assist companies provides much more limitations for households impacted by the pandemic.

She stated all however two of the nonprofit’s shelter rooms are full. With the scarcity of rental dwellings within the space, Mayfield stated, homeless households who’re prepared for the following step can’t transfer out of the shelter.

“There’s a lot competitors for housing models,” she stated.

Mayfield had deliberate to make use of a $124,000 grant from the state hire program to alleviate stressors that may result in homelessness. For instance, she stated, assist for automotive repairs is important in a group with no public transit, as a breakdown can spiral right into a misplaced job and eviction.

Mayfield stated she doesn’t view the grant mishap as malicious in any manner. She hopes the state will rethink and settle for the second spherical of emergency hire funds.

“For me, it’s simply one other indicator that Nebraska made a mistake by not taking them,” she stated. “It’s being performed from a spot of privilege and never being clued in or conscious of the particular on-the-ground state of affairs.”

Gifford, of Carry Up Sarpy, provided her fast-growing and luxury-home-heavy county for instance of how the impression of the pandemic on some households will be off the general public radar.

She stated Sarpy has no emergency shelters. Low-income housing is tough to seek out, she stated, and circumstances usually push residents into Douglas County to seek out companies.

“I’ve three veterans and 4 households in a lodge this week, all ready for housing to come back open,” she stated.