Meeting Scheduled with Community Volunteers to Address Lease Enforcement Mitigation
RICHMOND, VA—To date, the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority (RRHA) has applied over $4.5 million dollars in State rent relief funds to accounts of public housing families who are in arrears because of direct and indirect COVID 19 impacts. Even so, there is still more to be done. To that end, several individuals and organizations have offered their assistance and RRHA is taking them up on their offers.
At the January 19, 2022, Board of Commissioners meeting several individuals representing various organizations expressed concerns regarding RRHA moving forward with lease enforcement. These individuals told the Agency they were willing to help ensure that families were not subject to lease enforcement. RRHA’s Interim CEO sent a letter to these organizations and is planning to meet with all that RSVP on Thursday, February 10, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.
“RRHA welcomes each individual, educator and partner and appreciates their willingness to come together and use their resources, experience and connections to assist RRHA’s public housing families to ensure they stay in their home. We often say that ‘many hands make light work’ and we look forward to working with each of these organizations to mitigate as many negative outcomes as possible,” noted Interim CEO Ms. Stacey Daniels-Fayson.
Since rent relief assistance was first made available in January 2021, RRHA property managers have filled out thousands of rent relief applications. They continue to do so while resources are still available from the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).
DHCD is working on streamlining the application process, which will allow RRHA to fill out the entire application. Once completed, RRHA public housing residents simply need to provide a signature authorizing the application for rent relief. To date, over 1500 families are 31 days or more behind in rent.
As RRHA moves forward with lease enforcement, the Agency continues to exhaust all available options before issuing unlawful detainers. Families have several options to avoid lease enforcement action. These include, but are not limited to, applying for rent relief, entering into a repayment agreement, and paying off their balance. If their income has dropped, or they have been adversely affected, directly or indirectly by COVID, then they should contact their property manager, immediately.
For more information about this and other programs and policies of RRHA, visit www.rrha.com or any one of our social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Instagram. For general RRHA inquiries, contact our Call Center toll free at 1- 833-750-7742 (RRHA).