rental assistance

At a time when support for housing homeless people is under attack, preventing unnecessary evictions—which are costly as well as cruel—is more important than ever for local governments. Here are some of the approaches being tried.

The programs that kept some tenants housed during the pandemic also left out key groups of vulnerable renters. Their exclusion provides key lessons for the future of such programs.

Los Angeles has imposed an additional tax on luxury home sales to generate millions for housing efforts in the city. Shelterforce checks in on where the money has gone, and what’s to come.

Four years after the pandemic first wrought havoc on the American economy, nonprofit housers are being overwhelmed by rental arrears. Can they balance their social mission against their operational realities?

In 2019, a large affordable housing operator implemented a unique program meant to reduce evictions across its properties. Several years, one pandemic, and an economic downturn later, we check in to see how the landlord—and the tenants—are faring.

In 2018, the Family Self-Sufficiency Program was expanded to privately owned properties receiving project-based rental assistance. Here’s a look at how early adopters have used the program to support residents, and the lessons they learned along the way.

During the Great Depression, unemployed people organized and put their lives on the line to keep each other in their homes.

“This is not about reward and punishment … It’s about speeding up effective relief for families in need of housing security and eviction protection.”

We don’t really have a housing assistance system. We have hundreds of them. And that’s part of why it’s so hard to get rent relief out.

Last year, tenant advocacy groups convinced the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, to give cash quickly to residents at risk of eviction. As federal rent relief money trickles out, what can other areas learn from Santa Fe’s program?

Beyond the immediate need to stop mass evictions, there is much more that state and local officials can do to facilitate housing stability in a longer-term transition out of the pandemic emergency. The time for those critical measures is now.

The affordable housing industry considers the prospect of unprecedented funding if Biden’s housing as infrastructure plans make it through Congress.