Please note that if you can pay rent, pay it. If you can pay even 25% of your rent, pay it. Hoarding your cash from landlords, when over 50% of landlords generate income solely by renting, is unethical. Landlords cannot afford to keep a roof over their head while tenants have received huge cash bail outs from the government, unemployment and stimulus checks. We volunteer at the Food Bank and many times we've seen bags of groceries (that we bagged) jammed behind supermarket cashier stands i.e. people that are employed with access to free or heavily discounted food are draining the Food Bank's resources from people who have NO money. Be sensible and don't be greedy. Pay your fair share and regain your moral compass.
Featured in the San Francisco Public Press:
UPDATE 8/23/21 3:15 p.m. This is the latest installment in a series tracking financial assistance to San Franciscans with rent debt. We’ll aim to publish updated figures each week.
With just under six weeks to go before the moratorium on COVID-19-related evictions expires, requests for rent assistance have climbed to nearly $120 million in San Francisco.
A total of 10,552 households had requested $117.9 million in rent and utility assistance as of last week, about five months after the government opened financial aid programs to cover housing costs that residents incurred during the pandemic, according to data from state and local officials. Roughly one in five applicants had either been approved or received money. The programs have about $152 million in funding, some of which is for administrative costs.
Rent debt in San Francisco stood between $147 million and $355 million in June, according to estimates by the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst’s Office, which reports to the Board of Supervisors. The figures are based on unemployment rates that peaked in April 2020, rendering as many as 33,200 renters jobless, and did not return to pre-pandemic levels during the period studied.
The state and local governments are running parallel rent-relief programs. City residents should apply through the state’s program if they owe money for rent or other housing bills that were due from April 2020 through the end of March 2021; they should apply through the city’s program for debts in later months.
The statewide eviction moratorium, protecting tenants who could not pay rent due to COVID-19 hardships, was originally scheduled to end Jan. 31, but lawmakers have extended it twice. Following its new end date, Sept. 30, San Francisco tenants will be vulnerable to eviction if they have not paid at least 25% of the rents due in the preceding 12 months, as well as October’s rent. Tenants who can prove that they are eligible and have applied for financial assistance, but are awaiting a decision from the government, will continue to be protected through the end of March 2022 at latest.
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