Until recently, many landlords in Greenville County were unsure if they would ever get the money they lost from unpaid rent.
As the COVID-19 pandemic left millions of Americans unemployed and unable to pay their rent — with 1 in 7 Americans still behind on rent payments, according to the latest census data — landlords nationwide found themselves in a conundrum.
“It was an extremely difficult year for a lot of people,” said Joye Davis, executive director of Upper State Apartment Association, an advocacy and networking group in Greenville that counts 55,000 rental units among its members. “All of a sudden your income stream is cut off and you’re still responsible for maintenance, construction, electric, employees, and on and on.”
With no comprehensive way to track rent payments, the sum of back-rent owed, nationwide, varies widely from study to study. Estimates range from as little as $8 billion to as much as $53 billion, according to the Urban Institute.
The one certainty? Landlords have had few recourses to recoup their losses.
Eviction was, in many cases, off the table due to federal mandates and later a moratorium on most evictions imposed by the Centers for Disease Control which is still in effect until the end of June.
But recently, landlords received hope they would get some lost revenue back. In early March, the county announced it would be accepting applications for its Rental Assistance Program, which utilizes $15 million in federal funds from the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriation Act of 2021.
Assuming applicants meet eligibility requirements, the program covers missed rent going back 12 months, with an additional three months of rent payments into the future — up to $8,000 per applicant.
For landlords like Katie Spillers, the federal relief brought “happy tears.”
“No one wants to get into the industry to evict people,” said Spillers, who serves as community manager with West Chase Apartments in Greer. “Even now it’s hard for me to keep the emotion out of my voice when I talk about it.”
So far, Greenville County has distributed about $1.6 million to more than 200 applicants, with another 2,000 applications pending. County residents can apply until September 30.
“So there’s still a lot of time for folks to apply,” said County Government Affairs Coordinator Bob Mihalic. “Honestly, we weren’t quite sure what to expect at the start because it’s such a novel program.”
Spillers and other landlords in the Upstate are hoping the program remains permanent in some form or another. She and other landlords recently spoke to leaders in Washington D.C., including South Carolina Senators Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham, about the need for more, temporary rental assistance.
“We should have funding for these people who come into a temporary situation, where if they just had the boost of funding, they would be back on their feet in the next month or the next week even,” Spillers said. “But once you’ve got an eviction on your record, you’re incredibly hard pressed to find any other single family apartment.”
Coming off a year in which the “cancel rent” movement became a national topic of conversation, landlords who felt they were unfairly painted as greedy profit-seekers have now found themselves aligned with renter advocacy groups in their push for a more permanent solution to the nationwide evictions crisis.
“I think the misconception through it all is that landlords are only in it for the profit, the money, and it’s just the opposite,” Davis said. “The last thing any of us want is to see our residents out on the street.”
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As some push to 'cancel rent' in light of COVID-19 crisis, landlords, leaders seek solutions - GREENVILLE JOURNAL - Greenville Journal
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