With The Eviction Ban Over, Here’s How One City Is Hustling To Help Those Who Need It

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Tenants facing eviction wait to speak with attorneys from Memphis Area Legal Services in Room 134 of the Shelby County General Sessions Court in Memphis, Tenn.

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«Hopefully I find something before it’s too late, says Kyla Savage, standing outside the courthouse.

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Kyla Savage is one of those who has already been approved for assistance. She fell behind on rent in July, after the car she’d been driving for Lyft broke down. She says she’s surprised by the court’s efforts to steer people toward the rental assistance.

«I wasn’t expecting that, but it made me feel good to know that they are giving that information out, because a lot of people don’t know about it. I didn’t. My sister told me about it and I’m thankful she did, Savage says.

Still, she’s nervous about the months ahead as she looks for work to cover rent for her and her three children.

«Hopefully I find something before it’s too late. I don’t want to end up back in [court], and I really don’t want to end up out on the street, me and my kids. So I’m trying, she says.

Dorcas Young Griffin’s office oversees the emergency rental assistance program for Shelby County, Tenn.

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Memphis uses bulk settlements to reach more people

The program in Memphis is called Home901, and it’s run jointly by the City of Memphis and Shelby County.

Dorcas Young Griffin is director of the Shelby County office that oversees the program. She says a key to its success has been identifying places with 10 or more tenants behind on rent, and using bulk settlements to speed the process of getting money out.

One bulk settlement might cover a large number of people who live in the same apartment complex, for example.

These were people who «weren’t necessarily being evicted, but they hadn’t paid. So you knew that these were folks that needed help, Young Griffin says. The bulk settlements are «helpful for us because we know that instead of just getting one person settled and stable, we could do a hundred at a time.

For tenants, it might mean that they can avoid court entirely. For landlords, it means they can get one big check, rather than a lot of small ones.

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A sign at the courthouse points to the room where tenants can get help applying for rental assistance.

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Josh Kahane is an attorney who represents landlords in Memphis. «In the world we’re currently facing, having mass evictions is probably not in anyone’s best interest, he says.

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«For most of my clients, I’ve tried to push them both on the element of: This will help you recover some of the past rent delinquencies that exist, and also in the world we’re currently facing, having mass evictions is probably not in anyone’s best interest, he says.

Kahane practices in six other states that had still been under the CDC ban — and where, he says, the disbursement programs are not working so well.

Direct assistance to tenants is possible if landlords won’t accept the money

Landlords aren’t required to accept the federal money, and they can move to evict people if they want to.

Turner, the legal aid attorney, says when landlords won’t take the funds, the tenant who is approved for rental assistance can receive funding directly.

But in that case, the tenant is going to need to find a new place to live – and affordable housing is hard to come by. «The rental market is extraordinarily tight, Turner says. «We have a lot of investors flooding in from other states who find our real estate more affordable. It is getting hard to rent.

One of the people Turner helps in Room 134 is Willie Adams. He was working in delivery for a restaurant when he got very sick with COVID-19 last summer. Worried about further exposure, he stopped doing deliveries, and he’s now seven months behind on rent.

«I work for tips, so my income got cut. I only make a fourth of the money that I was making before the virus started and before I got sick, says Adams, 58.

It takes him a week to finish his application for rental assistance, after getting help from a tech-savvy friend, tracking down his landlord, and making another trip to Room 134.

He says he’ll feel a lot better once he knows the money will come through. With millions of Americans behind on the rent, that’s a feeling shared by many.

NPR National Desk producer Liz Baker contributed to this report.