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Connecticut renters and their landlords will get some measure of relief from a $900 billion federal COVID-19 aid package agreed to by congressional negotiators Sunday night.
The bill, whose text is being finalized, includes $25 billion in rental assistance that will be distributed by state and local governments. The money can be used for “assistance with rent and utility payments, unpaid rent or utility bills that have accumulated since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, and other housing expenses that were incurred due, directly or indirectly, to the pandemic,” according to the office of House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California.
The aid will be limited to households that make no more than 80 percent of area median income, have one or more members at risk of homelessness or housing instability and have one or more members who “qualify for unemployment benefits or experienced financial hardship due, directly or indirectly, to the pandemic,” Waters office said, noting that renter households making 50 percent of area median income or less and unemployed renter households will receive priority.
It also extends the Centers for Disease Control’s nationwide eviction moratorium until Jan. 31, 2021. The moratorium had previously been scheduled to end Dec. 31.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition, a renter and affordable housing provider advocacy group that’s been involved in some of the negotiations, estimates that Connecticut will receive $237.33 million.
That money may be used to add more resources to the state’s Temporary Rental Housing Assistance Program (TRHAP) program. TRHAP provides landlords with up to $4,000 in rental assistance on behalf of approved tenants. During the first round, more than $2.2 million in residential rent relief was distributed to landlords on behalf of 826 households out of $10 million initially budgeted, Gov. Ned Lamont’s office said last month. The program stopped accepting new applicants this summer after being overwhelmed with pleas for help but reopened for new applications in the fall..
The state is also offering $10 million in mortgage relief payments to homeowners, $5 million in assistance to renters who were facing eviction before the pandemic, $5.8 million budgeted to rehouse people currently homeless or leaving prison and without a home and $2.5 million to help house undocumented immigrants
For now, the $900 billion package that congressional leaders agreed to Sunday will provide urgently needed benefits to the unemployed, loans to help small businesses stay open and up to $600 in cash payments to most individuals. It will also help families facing evictions remain in their homes. The measure includes no budgetary help, though, for states and localities that are being forced to turn to layoffs and service cuts as their tax revenue dries up – a potential long-run drag on the economy.
Months from now, economists say, the widespread distribution and use of vaccines could potentially unleash a robust economic rebound as the virus is quashed, businesses reopen, hiring picks up and consumers spend freely again. Until then, the limited aid Congress has agreed to won’t likely be sufficient to stave off hardships for many households and small companies, especially if lawmakers balk at enacting further aid early next year. And a widening financial gap between the affluent and disadvantaged households will likely worsen.
“Some aid is better than no aid,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “It’s positive. But it’s likely going to be insufficient to bridge the gap from today until late spring or early summer, when the health situation fully improves.”
President-elect Joe Biden has said he will seek another relief package soon after his inauguration next month, setting up another political brawl, given that some Senate Republicans have said that with vaccines on the way, they think further government aid may be unnecessary.
Still, the new aid package may be enough, for now, to prevent another recession. S&P Global estimates that the money should help boost the U.S. economy back to its pre-pandemic level by the July-September quarter of next year – seven months or so from now. Without any support, that level wouldn’t have been reached until 2022, S&P estimates.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
