Alaska nonprofits, tribes and state housing corporation get kudos for smooth rollout of pandemic rental assistance – $106 million paid so far

Alaska is getting kudos nationally for a smooth rollout of a federal pandemic housing assistance program that has bogged down in other states.

So far, Alaska Housing Finance Corp. has distributed $105.5 million in pandemic relief to Alaska rental property owners adversely affected by the federal ban on eviction of tenants, as well as to utility companies for past-due bills to tenants.

There’s likely to be more coming, said Stacy Barnes, public and government affairs director of AHFC. A total of $242 million was allocated to Alaska for rent relief as a part of federal pandemic assistance approved by Congress late last year, and with over $100 million allocated to date there is more than $142 million remaining that can be paid out as needs require, Barnes said.

When it is paid out the $142 million will compete the first round of federal housing assistance that was approved by President Donald Trump last December. A second round, approved in March by President Joe Biden in the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, totals $152 million.

This money, also for rental assistance, will be paid out in same manner as the first round, through a consortium of AHFC, the Anchorage municipality, tribes, and nonprofits.

Alaskans who rent tend to work in lower-income jobs that were disproportionately affected by the pandemic and its impacts on businesses like restaurants and in the visitor industry.

Many of these people are protected from evictions by federal rules, which have been extended to October. The burden of nonpayment of rents, however, is really shouldered by property owners, many which are families or individuals owning one or two rental units and relying of them for income.

That the federal relief is paid directly to property owner as well as utilities, is a big help.

In the first round about one third of all Alaska renters applied for assistance, over 30,000, AHFC said. About 25,800 met family income eligibility requirements; 18,914 households and over 40,000 people, as of Aug. 23, were served with average household assistance at $5,544, the housing corporation said in a statement on the program.

Barnes said getting $100 million out the door to over 18,000 applicants in six months, and with all the income verification and required proof of qualification done, was a real accomplishment by regional housing authorities, charitable service nonprofits and the Anchorage municipality who partnered with AHFC.

“Alaska renters have been among the first to be approved for assistance, with eligible applicants receiving commitments for up to 12 months of rent and utility relief. Alaska is leading the country in this effort,” AHFC’s statement said.

The housing assistance money is paid directly or property owners of rental units as well as utility companies.

The federal government sent the money to several agencies including the Municipality of Anchorage and regional tribal housing authorities, but by mutual agreement AHFC provided a central processing administration, mostly automated.

“Anticipating the effort that would be required to successfully begin the distribution of aid in the midst of the pandemic, AHFC initiated an outreach last December to streamline procedures and leverage technology,” the statement by the housing corporation said.

“The effort led to five nonprofit organizations, 15 tribal entities and the Municipality of Anchorage joining forces with AHFC to distribute payments covering past-due or near-term future rent and utilities,” AHFC said.

Early on, the state housing corporation implemented technology that speeded the application approvals. Centralized processing of applications proved to be a key to the quick rollout in Alaska compared with other states where there was less coordination among state and local agencies and less technology used, which slowed the response.

An example, Barnes said, is that in states and major U.S. cities where public housing is dispersed among agencies there were many cases of duplicative applications when people submitted to more than one local agency, mostly in honest error.

That tended snarl the system, slowing things. Since Alaska had centralized processing duplicates were caught early. Another factor, Barnes said, was the involvement of several nonprofits around the state who manned phone lines to answer questions and coordinated the income verification and other eligibility requirements.

Anchorage-based Catholic Social Services was one of the nonprofits helping. Valley Residential Services in Wasilla, serving the Mat-Su region, is another, she said.