Tommie Horton, who grew up in Hamilton, told the Journal-News she was living out of her car before she found help through the program. She said SELF paid for seven or eight months of her rent at the Extended Stay hotel in Fairfield.
“It was like a blessing to me because I was sleeping in my car,” she said. “It started getting cold then and it was so much a blessing. It’s just been a battle. Even recently I had to pull out my own tooth because I couldn’t afford health insurance to pay for the dentist. So it’s harder out here than people think. You’ve got to decide between food and gas.”
SELF also received $11.5 million from five other grants and assisted 2,718 families. Diver said the rental assistance program was the “most monumental” undertaking his organization has ever handled. He told the Journal-News the program officially closed on June 30 but they processed a few straggling claims last month. He said the need has waned a bit but still exists.
“There are other community resources but they are generally very limited in what they are able to do,” Diver said. “So there is a void that’s been created with the end of this program.”
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, federal lawmakers approved two emergency rent and utility assistance programs, the first bucket of up to $25 billion was established under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, which was enacted in December 2020. The county qualified for $11.4 million and received it in one lump sum.
Another $21.5 billion was approved under the American Rescue Plan Act which was enacted in March 2021. The county commissioners were allotted $9 million but did not accept the second round of funding initially because they wanted to gauge the need first. They tapped it in January 2022 and the money came in waves.
The ill-effects of the pandemic still linger as evidenced by the food stamp dollars distributed by Butler County Job and Family Services. Executive Director Julie Gilbert told the Journal-News residents received $49.8 million in 2019 before the pandemic descended, for the first six months of this year $46.2 million has already been spent.
According to the directive from the U.S. Treasury, eligible expenses for the rent program included rent, rental arrears, utilities and home energy costs, utilities and home energy costs arrears, and other expenses related to housing. Funds could also be used for “housing stability services, including case management and other services intended to keep households stably housed.” Applicants had to be able to prove they were in need due to the pandemic.
The commissioners had their own conditions for the money: they wanted assurance landlords wouldn’t evict the people after they got their money or raise rent, they wanted to utilize wrap-around programs the county has to help people get back on their feet, and they wanted to make sure people understood this is short-term assistance.
SELF Program Director Gayle Drexler said the majority of the clients hailed from Hamilton and Middletown and 67% were living at or below 30% of the area median income or making less than $31,450 for a family of four. The money paid for 26,000 months worth of rent. She said there were 79 applicants still on the waiting list when the funds were exhausted and they were contacted and given information about other available assistance.
SELF had to bulk up its staff to handle the program and paused accepting applications a few times because they were inundated with applications and there were delays in getting promised money from the U.S. Treasury. They also partnered with Family Promise, the Education Service Center, Reach Out Lakota, the Oxford Family Resource Center and the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati to get the job done.
Drexler noted Butler County had the second highest eviction rate in the state in 2018. The Journal-News found the county had the highest rate in 2022 with a 10.46% eviction rate and there were 4,544 filings, according to the Ohio Housing Finance Agency. Drexler told the commissioners recently they worked hard to tackle the evictions utilizing these funds. They attended eviction court hearings in Hamilton and Middletown and partnered with Legal Aid lawyers. Applicants facing imminent eviction were prioritized.
“Another challenge was establishing positive working relationships with area landlords,” she said. “SELF would work directly with landlords as soon as applications were assigned. Over time the landlords established a trusting relationship with SELF.”
Diver said all of the clients who were served through the program were offered wrap around services through OhioMeansJobs and other SELF services. Drexler said they received more than 330 responses from 1,400 clients surveyed and 23% said they had gotten new jobs and 16% said their household income had increased. When asked if their housing situation was now stable, 63% said yes.
The program wasn’t problem-free — the survey showed 97.6% of the clients were satisfied with the service they received — Diver and Drexler said they did encounter some fraudulent clients and landlords alike when the applications were online, so they took online applications offline as soon as they realized what was happening.
“We discovered that an online application also opened up the opportunity for fraudulent applications to be submitted from all parts of the country,” Drexler said. “As time progressed the attempts at fraud increased. Applications were being submitted which required a great deal of scrutiny to review.”
Diver told the Journal-News no one actually defrauded the agency, “SELF staff were diligent in exploring potential fraud and stopping those applications with suspicious material.”
Commissioner T.C. Rogers said there was some concern at first that SELF would be able to handle such a huge program, but told Diver his agency really “stepped up.” Commissioner Don Dixon also praised Diver and his staff for their work.
“We have all kinds of people wanting to represent us on a million different projects,” Dixon said. “But I have to tell you, when they say Jeffrey Diver is involved that’s a five star rating. We appreciate what you do and how you move through to make sure it’s done properly and accountably.”
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