Evictions could hit record high once federal assistance funds run out

Publish date: 2024-08-03

A local nonprofit is sounding the alarm about what the impact could be once federal funds for rental assistance run out.

The federal funding allocated to Ada County is expected to run out this month, and the rest of the funding for tenants elsewhere in the state could be gone by the by the fall, which means Jesse Tree will need to serve fewer families in the Treasure Valley.

"We expect to see the highest eviction rates ever throughout the Treasure Valley area and also significant housing loss," said Jesse Tree's program director Evan Stewart.

Jesse tree helps roughly 100 families per month.

Since the pandemic began through now, Stewart says they've served more than 4,200 households with case management -- the vast majority of them were at risk of eviction -- and helped more than 2,600 with rental assistance.

"We find that just providing you know, one time assistance - roughly $2,000 is going to prevent a family from being evicted from their home, whereas it could cost roughly $12,000 to rehouse a family," Evans said.

Over the last couple of years, throughout the Treasure Valley, he says there have been over 2,000 eviction filings.

"And that was all during the eviction moratorium, with the federal funding that was still available through the Covid rent relief programs. I mean we've already seen in January of 2023, a 66% increase from the January in 2022. I don't know number wise but we predict it's going to be the highest year of eviction filings in the Treasure Valley," Stewart said.

The pandemic meant a huge amount of resources came to help families stay in their homes. In April 2021, Jesse Tree says it received $3.4 million in federal grant funding. All of that was spent by Dec. 2022to help families. An additional $50 million in rental assistance was made available through the Idaho Housing and Finance Association and the Boise City Ada County Housing Authority.

Stewart says the former is expected to be completely gone by fall. For tenants in Ada County, Stewart says that funding will run out this month.

"We're going to do our best to try to replace it, but it's difficult as of now. There's just really nothing available of that magnitude," Stewart said.

And if the Treasure Valley does see a spike in eviction filings, as is expected, Stewart says, "There's definitely a strong correlation between being evicted and being homeless. Not everybody who's going to be evicted is going to end up homeless, there's a lot of people who have friends, family, different people in the community that they can reach out to."

But having an eviction on your record, "means a huge hit to your credit score, inability to find new rentals," Stewart said.

The hope, Stewart says, is that there's more community investment to help some of these families in need stay in their homes.

"And even some government investment to make sure that we're mitigating this impact," Stewart said. "It really takes a community coming together to help people in need "

ncG1vNJzZmihlJa1sLrEsKpnm5%2BifK%2Bx1qxmpaeTlrlwsdWimq2hn6PAbq%2FOrqOdZZiewW6%2BxJymq5xdnbaotIyopZydXZuypbHRmqNmmaOotrTAwKeanmWWqrulv4yrrKdln6rB