Lafayette Consolidated Government is launching a $7 million program to provide rent and utilities assistance to Lafayette Parish residents affected by COVID-19 this week.
LCG is partnering with Catholic Charities of Acadiana and SMILE Community Action Agency to administer $7 million in federal funds to low-income parish residents impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a start date of Thursday, April 1. Eligibility for the funds covers residents all of Lafayette Parish's municipalities as well.
The funds are coming from the U.S. Treasury Department and will be used to directly fund as much as 12 months of unpaid rent and utilities bills for households with income levels below 80% of the parish's median income for their household size.
Those household income limits are available online from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. For a family of four in Lafayette Parish, the limit is $52,150 in 2020 income.
Starting Thursday, parish residents can apply for the assistance online at catholiccharitiesacadiana.org and at smilecaa.org, by phone at (337) 234-3272 ext. 200 or in person at SMILE's downtown Lafayette office at 501 St. John Street.
Priority will be given to applicants from households that include someone who has been unemployed for over 90 days or households earning below 50% of the parish's median family income, or $32,600 for a family of four.
Mayor-President Josh Guillory announced the program Tuesday alongside leaders fromCatholic Charities of Acadiana and SMILE and encouraged the parish's residents to apply for assistance even if they assume they may not qualify.
"When in doubt, please apply," he said. "We'd rather you apply with our stakeholders, and if you're not eligible, that's fine. I know they'll do all they can to point you in the right direction."
LCG Community Development Director Hollis Conway, whose department has worked alongside both non-profits to organize the program and gain federal approval to move forward, said it can help renters and landlords by easing the impacts of the pandemic's economic toll locally.
"This program will help renters who are affected directly or indirectly by this pandemic, and now can not afford to pay their rent or utilities," Conway said. "It will also help landlords who must continue to pay mortgages on their property regardless of whether they receive rent payments or not."
The funds will go directly to landlords and utility companies on behalf of the program's applicants, Guillory said, and could include funds for as much as three months of future rent expenses, depending on applicants' eligibility.
"This is a little different than the previous relief last year that we saw," Guillory said. "This goes directly to our landlords, or directly to the utilities systems, with credit to the recipient or credit to the ratepayer or the renter. So it's kind of a win, win, win all the way around."
Last year, LCG and Lafayette's city and parish councils allocated $660,000 in federal aid for rent and utilities assistance, which Catholic Charities of Acadiana CEO Kim Boudreaux said helped many of the area's residents but was quickly exhausted.
Boudreaux said the LEAP funds announced Tuesday could have a considerably larger impact depending on how many residents apply for help through the program.
"We know that the need was far greater than we were able to serve, so we're looking forward to being able to help more people," Boudreaux said. "Those programs are limited to up to three months, and this program is up to 12 months in arrears and three months forward. So how many people it would help would be different than the programs that we've administered in the past, so it's kind of hard to compare."
Renters won't automatically be credited their full rent amounts through the program though, since federal guidelines cap payments to landlords at a pre-determined fair market value, which varies based on the number of bedrooms in a rental property. For a three-bedroom unit, that cap is around $1,200 per month. More information about the fair market rent cap is available online here.
The program will also require landlords not to evict tenants who have their unpaid rent funded through the program for at least 90 days after the aid runs out, and it requires them to forgive late fees, penalties, interest, rent above what LEAP will pay for fair market value and court costs.
LEAP's initial funding of $7 million could be bolstered by another $9 million in federal aid if the need for the funds proves to be large enough, Guillory said, though that money will have to be released by Louisiana's state government first.
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