 Welcome everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. And I will just start us off slowly with some housekeeping basic information. Hi, my name is Kate I work for San Francisco Public Library. I'm very grateful and glad that Nick and Ugo from Mayor's Office of Housing are here with us today to talk about this fantastic program. Thank you both. And I think that is all from me Nick am I forgetting anything. No, I think you nailed it. Okay, well then I guess we can get started thank you guys again so much for being here and please take it away. All right. Ugo, do you want to kick it off or should I kick it off. Well, please do Nick I'll be here to back you up. Okay. So I'm Nick pedal auto so I work with the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development I'm one of their housing or I'm sorry community development specialist. And I work with Ugo on a number of community development endeavors but this is probably the most important of them right now. We do have a local program to help assist tenants who fallen behind on their rent. It works in conjunction with the state program that we also work closely with. And right now we are really interested in making sure that we reach as far and as deep as we possibly can to make sure that tenants are aware if they need rental assistance that they can either access our program, or the state program. And first let me think of the library because this is one of our opportunities to do just that. And we're going to try to do this, hopefully, in a way that says accessible and informative as possible. I'm going to try to keep my presentation to about 20 minutes and walk through the basics of the program. And then folks are going to have an opportunity to ask questions of us so I will take this away. As I mentioned earlier, there are two programs there's a state program and there's a local program. We don't work with the local program but we do encourage folks to apply to the state program the state program is for those folks who have fallen behind in their rent. Anytime from April of 2020, all the way to March of this year, and they can help with up to six months of rental assistance. Our program works to assist folks who have fallen behind or rather not six months they can actually cover the entire amount of rent that you may have fallen behind for during that period of time but our program is an operation from April of this year, moving forward in our program will continue to operate basically until we run out of funding. Both of our programs receive funding from the state. And we do work closely again with both the state as well I'm sorry with from the federal government. And we do work closely with both the state and the federal government to make sure that we are working as as effectively as possible to get funding at the door. One of the things that we want to ensure is that folks have as much access as possible to the program and so we've set up a website, which you'll see here on our screen. You can go to SF.gov forward slash rent help. And if you have the ability to access the website through a computer, or you have a friend who can help you access the webpage you can apply yourself directly. But we do also have community partner organizations who can help you to do exactly that and can walk you through the process and help you to apply. If you go to SFADC.org. They have a full listing of our partner organizations and you see that on your screen right now, which can help you in a number of different languages and they provide assistance in helping you apply either with a paper application or they can help you walk through the website itself. The website is translated into three different languages other than English you can access the website in Spanish you can access it in Chinese and you can also access it in Filipino. And as I mentioned our community partners can help you in those languages as well as a variety of other languages so if you go to that website SFADC.org, you can find assistance with application. Our program can help you with rent for six months. It can cover three months back rent and three months of prospective rent. It's free to apply to this program. As I mentioned earlier, our program exists for folks who have fallen behind in their rent from April of this year forward. Of course, there are many folks who are going to have need for assistance for a period of time that goes before April of this year. So we do encourage everybody if you have a need that goes that exists from before April of this year, you can apply to the state program as well. And the state's program can be accessed at the website that you see here, housingiskey.com. And you can apply of course to both programs you can apply for rental assistance between April and March of this year through the state program, and then you can apply separately for assistance from April moving forward through our state or through our local program. Now, in order to be eligible to to get assistance from us. There are three basic things three basic criteria that you have to meet. So you do have to have a financial hardship during pandemic, which means that you would have qualified for unemployment benefits or experienced a reduction in your household income. You also have to have a demonstrated risk of experiencing homelessness or housing instability. So this means that you can show us a past to rent notice. It can also mean that you're living in unsafe or unhealthy living conditions. So it can also mean if you've been able to keep up with your rent, but you've had to take out a personal loan, or if you've maxed out your credit cards in order to pay your rent. Or even if you've fallen behind and paying your utility bills in order to cover your rent that can qualify you for for rental assistance through our program. It's also based on income. So we do have a requirement that applicants be at 80% or below of area median income, and you see that listed here on the screen for one person. It's at $100 and $2,000 for two person household it's at $117,000. We do prioritize those households which are very low income and extremely low income, meaning that we prioritize those applications that are at 50% of a MI and below. It doesn't mean that we are not going to assist those folks who are at over 50%, but we are going to move those who have a lower income to the front of the line. One thing that folks should know right now is that, as I was telling our host earlier, our program is extremely low barrier, and if you apply, there's a very high likelihood that you're going to receive aid. We've received over 4500 applications so far, and 98% of those applications have been selected to move forward to the verification stage of the program. One thing that I wanted to quickly note here is that for tenants who have fallen behind on their rent. There are protections in place that have been put into effect by the state as well as by our local government. If you're not able to pay any rent, or if you're only able to pay some rent between March 1 to August 31 2020, your landlord cannot evict you for not having been able to pay rent during that period of time. If you do have a landlord who's threatening you with eviction, there are many resources that you can take advantage of to receive counseling on how to respond to those threats as well as potentially legal assistance. And when you go to that San Francisco anti-displacement coalition website, you'll find a list of organizations that can assist you with that. And if you have received a notice of a past due rent for that period of time, you do have to give your landlord a 50 declaration rather of financial distress and you'll see here on our website. There's a link that is to a website that will provide you with that declaration to respond in case you did receive a notice of nonpayment of rent which you are required to provide to your landlord. If you were not able to pay rent between September 1 of 2020 and September 30, the law does require something different of you. It does require for you not only to file that declaration of financial distress. It also requires you by September 30 of this year to pay at least 25% of the rent that's owed and you don't have to keep up with that month after month. You can do that in a lump sum payment. And if you do that, then again, you are protected completely against being able to be evicted for nonpayment of rent. Now, as I mentioned, we are working in partnership with various organizations who are helping our tenants, not only to fill out applications for rental assistance, but can also help you if you're being unlawfully threatened with eviction. So if that is the case, as I mentioned, you can go to that SFADC website and you will find information there that can help you to navigate and to find organizations that can help you. So with that, that is my brief overview of the program and I'm sure there are now probably many, many questions that folks have. Thank you, Nick. There are none in the chat, but we do encourage attendees to either use the chat with any questions or comments they may have, or please feel free to unmute yourselves and ask your questions. So we have a question here. Would you recommend applying to both programs or one? It depends on what period of time you're behind on your rent. If you're behind on your rent for that period of time from April of last year until March of this year, then please by all means apply to the state program. If you're behind on your rent from April of this year moving forward, then you should apply to our program. Nick, could you talk about the time that it takes for an application to be fully processed? Sure. So this is, as you can imagine, a pretty heavy lift on the part of the city and all of our community partners. So to date, we've received, as I mentioned, about 4500 applications. And one of the things that we're seeing right now is that we're doing pretty well in terms of getting people to apply. But it is taking a bit of time before the money actually gets out the door to folks. Generally speaking, when you apply you're going to get an immediate notice via email telling you that you have in fact successfully applied to the program. It'll take about another two to three weeks after that to find out if you are now moving forward into the verification stage of the program. And then after that, it may take up to six weeks for you to get to the end of the process. But again, we are trying to keep up with an unprecedented demand on a program that at this point is a little over two months old. So we are still making sure that we have enough capacity in our community partners to make sure that we are doing this as efficiently as possible. But in some cases, it may take a little longer than that window that I just talked about. Thank you, Nick. And could you talk about the verification process and if an applicant has difficulty providing, you know, pay stubs or a lease agreement? What else could we do to get them to the finish line? So again, we're trying to make this as low barrier as possible. And so we do ask for our applicants to provide us with whatever information they may have regarding proof of their tenancy, which can be a written lease agreement. And we can also be a letter from the landlord telling us that this person is in fact a tenant. If they have a rent ledger, that would be proof of how much they pay in rent. And if they have notices of nonpayment of rent, that of course would show us how much exactly they're behind in their rent. So in some cases, a tenant is not going to have that. So we will work with the landlord to try to get that from the landlord. And we will also require if we're going to pay the the assistance directly to either the landlord or to the master tenant, depending on who the applicant pays rent to, we will require that a W nine be completed and sent back to us. In some cases, landlords are going to refuse to provide us with with the W nine, but we will make concerted efforts to reach out to make sure that that's provided to us. But in situations where we do have documentation showing the tenancy and where we do have documentation showing the amount owed. We will provide rental assistance directly to the tenant if the landlord isn't going to cooperate with the W nine. And in instances where we may not have any documentation showing how much is is owed or even documentation of a tenancy, we will rely on self attestation to provide three months of rental assistance directly to that tenant. Thank you, Nick. And could you elaborate on the six months of assistance available in the local program so 12 months are available at the state for the April 2020 through March 2021 period. Could you go over because a lot of tenants are are not familiar with the rental assistance program that gives them rent into the future. Yeah, so in in situations where tenant has rent that's owed from some point in April of this year moving forward, we can cover however many months of back rent are owed for up to three months. However, in situations where the tenant also needs future rental assistance where they can show that they are housing unstable, in other words, where they are in a situation where they may potentially find themselves unhoused because they still meet assistance moving forward, even though they may not have any back rent that's owed. We are able to provide up to three months of future rent. And that's in a continuous block of three months, if a tenant can show us, as I mentioned earlier, that they were, they had to take out a loan to cover their rent, or where they had to max out their credit cards or where they had to take money away from paying for their utilities, for example, in order to cover their rent. So again, it's six months of rent total, but that's divided into two separate tracks. One is to pay back rent and then another three months to pay future rent. Thank you. Another question from an attendee is, are there two programs, state and city funded or federal and state funded. So the, the state program, both of our programs receive funding from the federal government in and the state program sets aside money. It's money for the entire state but it has money that's dedicated to San Francisco. Our money comes from the federal government, but we will soon also in October also have access to local funding, which will allow us to continue to extend the program into the future, and hopefully be able to assist everybody that needs assistance. Thank you Nick. Another question is, is there also a telephone number applicants can call if they don't have access to a computer. Yes, so that website that I mentioned San Francisco anti displacement coalitions with the website SFADC.org, and I'm showing it on the screen right now. There are a number of different partner organizations that folks can call and they will provide you with assistance and in filling out applications. And for the state program Nick, I believe housing is key.com has a call center. That's correct. Yeah, so if you, if you go to housing is key.com, they do have a call center number that does provide applicants with assistance. Does the local program provide utility assistance. No, not directly unfortunately we don't pay for utilities in and of themselves. However, if your utilities are included as part of your rent in your lease agreement or in your oral agreement, then we can pay for that so long as it's part of your rental agreement as part of your rent. So the state program for its 12 month period of April 2020 through March 2021 does cover utilities. Yeah. Let's see other questions. So one, one important issue that has come up before is immigration status. Folks are curious as to whether you have to be a citizen in order to apply or if you have to be documented in order to apply. That is not the case. Anybody can apply to our program as well as the state program, regardless of status. Thank you, Nick. Other frequently asked questions include roommates, co tenants, sub tenants, are they eligible to apply to either the state or local program. Yes, so both are eligible or both any number of roommates are eligible to apply so in our local program. We can we can allow individuals to apply for themselves if they live in a roommate situation, or if there are multiple families living together in one unit, they can apply as separate households. The understanding is that the state program has now also adopted that standard and it does allow for individuals to apply separately, even if they live together in a single in a single unit, and it counts their income separately, just as our program counts income separately. And another frequently asked question has to do with how landlords access rental assistance on behalf of their tenants for either program. Yes, so the state program allows either landlords or tenants to apply directly to their program. Our program is limited to tenants applying. We require the or at least we ask for the participation of landlords and we will reach out to landlords during the verification process. But currently we do not have a means for landlords to apply directly to our program. And does the city have landlord outreach partners that that could provide assistance. We do. We do have a partnership with home ownership SF, and they do have a number of different programs that work with different landlord or landlord groupings. We do have a relationship and a partnership with the San Francisco apartment association, and they are both encouraging property owners to apply to both the state program as well as encourage their tenants to apply to our program. Let's see it looks like we have another chat. I do not feel like I live in a healthy environment and I fear being unhoused at any time. I have applied for a below market rate rental unit, but I never won a lottery. After the pandemic I feel that my income has fallen too low to qualify. So anyway, I can find a rental like BMR because of my circumstances. So we do have below market we have an office of housing we do have the mayor's office of housing that does assist folks who are are trying to find low income housing so I can provide a link or maybe can put the number to our mayor's office of housing that has various programs that can hopefully assist you with that. Sure, I could provide a link to our housing counseling agencies that could help you navigate that. Meanwhile, like I could get that link while you cover more if you have more. So one of the things that we're trying to do is to spread the word for our program. As I mentioned, we do have over 4,500 applications so far, but we know that there is a much greater need out there. So we are anxious to partner with organizations and even with individuals to get the word out. So if you have an idea of how to help us to do that or if you are a member or an employee of an organization and want to spread the word. We can certainly get outreach materials to you and talk to you as well about how to potentially partner with you to spread the word and get to as many different communities as we can. Thank you Nick we have another chat. Could you talk about the application processes I know you've covered our local one. Could you talk about the state program and any program or application improvements. So the state program also has that website housing is key calm. And you can apply directly as a tenant, you can also if you don't want to do it yourself you can encourage your landlord to apply as well they do have a call center as we mentioned earlier that's listed on that website that can assist you in doing that we also have organizations here in San Francisco like the Mission Economic Development Agency that helps folks to apply to the state program. There have been some changes that have been made to the state program that have made it more accessible and we know from our conversations with the state program that they've now become very efficient in getting money out the door. I think there was a public perception for a while that the state program was both very restrictive as well as not responsive. I think the state heard that they certainly heard it from us. And in response to that, they've now, for example, as I mentioned earlier, are allowing individuals who live in shared housing situations to apply individually. There was a requirement earlier that said that the landlord had to waive 20% of whatever rent was owed to the landlord in order to qualify for the program that requirement is no more they're willing to reimburse the landlord 100% of all rent that's owed. In terms of responsiveness as I said, they are right now getting money out the door at a rate that's commensurate to our program. And they have a lot of resources that they've now agreed that they're going to send our way. So we are happy with the changes in the state program and we really encourage everybody, no matter what you may have heard, or what the reputation maybe of the state's program. It's actually doing a really great job right now. Thank you Nick. The question is how long is the state application process. Is it longer than six weeks. I don't have a quick answer off the top of my head for that. It's my understanding that yes, it is, but they're working to shorten it to 30 days or so. So, their process is similarly six to nine weeks from the time an application is submitted. They are working to accelerate just as Nick said just as we are locally to make it more like a four to six week process. How about Nick informal living situations. Many folks for example rent a couch or a garage, you know perhaps it's not a formal lease agreement, are they eligible to apply to our program. Great question. They are if somebody has a rental obligation. We can help them to cover whatever they fall in behind in terms of that rental obligation. So if you are just renting from somebody in formal even if it's just a verbal agreement. If we can have documentation of it. That's fantastic. If that fails if you're not able to document it by talking to whoever is renting that couch to you that's still not a barrier. As I mentioned earlier, through self attestation, we would still be able to give you up to three months of rental assistance even under those circumstances. Thank you. My understanding is that the eviction moratorium locally is until September 30 and the federal moratorium is that is now October 3. Could you clarify that. Yeah, would you like to do that Nick or I'm not sure of I'm not sure of what the distinction is or what do you. Oh, sure. So we have a statewide non payment eviction moratorium that is set to expire on September 30. We have a separate and distinct general eviction moratorium. And that it looks like it's been and we don't know the details, but it's been extended through October 3. And it's very limited moratorium that applies to communities that are experiencing a surge of 90% or more, I believe a code COVID cases. And I encourage you since this is really kind of a legal matter to access a legal services organization or a tenant counseling organization that's available at the anti displacement coalition website that to kind of dive into it, because the eviction moratoriums are very different. The statewide non payment eviction moratorium is a blanket non payment moratorium, right. So we've covered kind of the procedures of you know 15 day notice and a declaration of COVID-19 financial impact, etc. Whereas the state moratorium is more. The household has to qualify. They have to have a certain income. It's more of a procedural thing so there is some difference in timing. But there are different types of evictions, not just non payment. So we encourage you to speak with the tenant counselor or attorney attorney with whom mo city partners. Yeah, and there is also a local moratorium that was enacted by the board of supervisors, which will also expire at the end of September. The moratorium covers any eviction that's not related to a non COVID non payment of rent to LSEC cases and to cases where there's allegations of violence, or the threat to the health and safety of others. But that's also again coming to an end at the end of September. So could you quickly cover again the statewide non payment eviction moratorium for folks. I know we covered that early in the presentation and I noticed that several folks have joined us since. Yeah, so let me go back and how we can, we can run over it. And as I mentioned all of this information that I'm scrolling through is contained on our rent health web page which is SF dot GOB. So in terms of our current moratorium period. If you are in a situation where you were not able to pay rent from March 1 to August 31 of 2020. If you do have a small requirement, you are required to provide a declaration of financial distress if you receive a 15 day notice of non payment of rent from your landlord. But if you do that, then you are completely protected against eviction and you don't need to worry about having to pay anything at that point. If you don't pay rent, or if you didn't pay rent between September 1 of last year and September 30 of this year, you are required to pay 25% of whatever rent you owed for that period of time. You can have kept up with it month by month, but if you didn't do that, you can pay that all in a lump sum by September 30, then you also are required to provide the landlord with a declaration of financial distress, which is basically a form telling the landlord that you're not able to pay rent as a result of COVID impacts. And Nick, could you talk about how the landlord can recover that rental debt, even though it takes eviction off the table. Right. So the landlords will be allowed to take their tenants to small claim court, small claims court to pursue the rental debt so they can't use the non payment as the basis for eviction, but they may be allowed to take their tenants to small claims court to get the debt pay off. And so, again, we encourage everybody who's in that situation, who may not feel threatened by eviction, but may have rental debt to take advantage of our program to take advantage of the state program. Because your landlord may in fact try to take you and would have the right to take you to small claims court once we have the expiration of the moratorium. Thank you so much Nick and Hugo for all this wonderful information and for being here with us today to clear some things up. And thank you everyone for joining us.