Finally, Some (Rent) Relief: The Experience of Undocumented Folks Struggling to Make Rent During the COVID-19 Pandemic
By: Melissa Frasco
Making rent is never easy, and it has become especially difficult during the Covid-19 pandemic. If you lived in New York City pre-Covid you were probably paying rent. Some people live with family, some own their homes/apartments, but for many paying rent is the just a way of living. Couple this context with the amount of renters in NYC with the severity of the pandemic, financial instability, and lack of protections for renters and you have a recipe for turmoil.
Over the past eighteen months I worked mostly with undocumented people who had rent troubles. Some had apartments that they had lived in for five even ten years that they were no longer able to afford. With the trouble paying rent finding another apartment or room to rent is hard enough while being undocumented. Even though it is illegal to deny someone a lease or lease renewal based on their immigration status. Due to the ways that social institutions function in the city it often does not benefit undocumented people to share their undocumented status (unless for example with services providers and medical professionals which are HIPAA compliant.) For service providers, like my program, which only worked with undocumented folks we stared into gaping policy holes that left vulnerable people with even less coverage during the pandemic.
We saw most families who were ineligible for stimulus checks, who had no chance in applying for subsidized housing due to lack of documentation, and those who had the mindset that would not be any programs to help with financial situation. For a change, there was hope this time, with a new program called Emergency Rental Assistance Program or ERAP for short. I started gathering every resource I could find in Spanish to offer to clients in a text message that would act as a virtual packet for any questions and resources they may need to apply.
ERAP sounded like a dream come true, it was the second rental assistance program that undocumented folks were able to apply for. The first being the Covid Rent Relief program which was much was less expansive. This new program allowed people to apply if they had lost work, wages, or their job and experienced financial hardship since the start of the pandemic (dated as March 13, 2020 on the application). They also allowed people to apply for any apartment or room they had been renting and unable to afford rent due to these hardships. This program allowed participants to provide proof of residency without a proper lease, as many landlords will take advantage of undocumented renters and ask for cash or payment without a proper lease agreement. Being without a proper lease does not deny any renter their rights as a tenant. Aside from their part of the application the renters also had to have their landlords participate and fill out their half of the application. Soon we saw encountered many barriers hostile landlords, language barriers, and technological barriers for both renters and landlords. Due to the ongoing pandemic all applications had to be completed online, many of the people I worked with only having phones to do so. There were and still are helpful call centers available who provided support to applicants and landlords. Not all landlords were difficult to work with in this process but for undocumented people there is a greater power imbalance for them to work with a landlord. Many landlords were just as stuck and financially drained as some of the people I worked with, but this did not mean they were understanding of a tenant’s situation.
This program opened June 1st, 2021 and closed November 14th, 2021 due to a large majority of the funding running out for most counties in New York state, including the five boroughs. I want to close this blog on a somewhat happy note. Besides the long wait time, (most clients had applied back in July and August and were still waiting on responses) I helped one more client call to check her application status in late December. I called with the client on the phone, who we will refer to as Tina (not her real name), and dialed the ERAP call center for assistance. I acted as a translator to facilitate the conversation and explain faster what our situation was. Tina gave me the necessary information that I parroted back in English to the operator. She took some time to look up the information and told me that Tina’s application had been accepted for rental and utilities assistance. Because the application was for rent owed between March 13, 2020 until December 31, 2021 Tina had qualified for just over $20,000 in assistance due to demonstrated financial need. This was great news, I quickly wrote down the information and repeated it back to Tina in Spanish, she was overjoyed but of course had some questions. She asked how she could receive the assistance and if they would be able to tell her about the utilities part as she was worried about her heat being turned off in December.
Before we get ahead of ourselves this payment is not just cash that can be used for anything, and it does not even go directly to Tina or any other applicant. The ERAP program instead puts their trust in the landlords to receive and fully apply this one time payment to the rent arrears of the recipient. The applicant is also notified by email at the same time the assistance is received by the landlord. If there are any issues or the landlord does not update the applicant applicants are told they should contact the call center to confirm if it was received.
The final step of this program creates an even larger power imbalance between all renters and landlords, but especially for renters who are undocumented and have never received any assistance like this before. The other issue we faced was that for the utilities part of the application Tina and no other renters had received any assistance yet. The operator explained that Tina was approved for utility assistance but the city, ERAP, and the utility companies had not reached an agreement yet on how to assist those who qualified (more than a half year since the program was created). It would be easy to be focused on all the success that this program achieved; in Tina’s case her rent arrears were seemingly taken care of in one phone call (after months of waiting). However, there are much more glaring issues still at play, Tina did receive some assistance, with the hope that her landlord will apply all of her assistance correctly and does not misuse it, and she is still without utility assistance despite being approved. The truth is Tina and many other applicants are still left in vulnerable positions. For applicants, half of their financial wound is starting to heal with the help of rent assistance, but the lack of utility assistance is just adding insult to injury. As of January 7th, 2022 there has been no new updates on any extra funding to replenish the Emergency Rental Assistance Program.
To be clear despite its challenges NYC does actually have a fair amount of renter resources for information which I will list below:
Frequently asked question for ERAP (Emergency Rental Assistance Program)
https://otda.ny.gov/programs/emergency-rental-assistance/faq.asp
ERAP Contact Information
Call center hours will be:
Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Contact us by phone: (844-691-7368)
For the hearing impaired, TTY phone number: 1-833-843-8829
The ABCs of Housing is HPD's guide to housing rules and regulations for owners and tenants.
Owners and tenants have legal responsibilities to each other. HPD is one of many city and state agencies that enforce those responsibilities. This booklet is designed to help owners and tenants gain an understanding of the rules and regulations affecting housing, and to provide information about how to receive assistance.
Inside the guide you will find information about owners' and tenants' rights and responsibilities, staying in your apartment safely, resources for new affordable housing or rental assistance, and useful contact information for other housing related issues
English guide to housing rules and regulations for owners and tenants.
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/hpd/downloads/pdfs/services/abcs-of-housing.pdf
Español Derechos y responsabilidades de propietarios e inquilinos
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/hpd/downloads/pdfs/services/abcs-of-housing-spanish.pdf
Access this guide in more languages below
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/hpd/services-and-information/tenants-rights-and-responsibilities.page