Idris Espada, a tenet advocate from Holyoke, Massachusetts, said she lives in a low income housing complex.
“Every month I make decisions between paying for groceries, my phone, my light bills,” Espada said. “I am struggling. It is very painful.”
Idris Espada, a tenet advocate from Holyoke, Massachusetts, said she lives in a low income housing complex.
“Every month I make decisions between paying for groceries, my phone, my light bills,” Espada said. “I am struggling. It is very painful.”
The typical annual rent increase nationally fell to zero in June for the first time since the pandemic began, after peaking at 17.8% in 2021, according to Apartment List, a rent information aggregator and research firm. In September, rents fell 1.2%.
Of the $46.5 billion approved by Congress to help renters who fell behind on payments amid the pandemic, only $5.1 billion had been distributed by the end of July, according to Treasury data. Michigan has made progress, doling out $34.3 million in rental assistance in June to help 5,298 households, more than $28 million in May and $11.2 million in April.
State and local officials disbursed $1.5 billion in rental assistance during June — more than during the entire previous five months — to help households falling behind on rent and utilities, according to U.S. Treasury data released Wednesday. That progress in getting slow-moving federal dollars to struggling renters comes as the Biden administration and housing advocates have been scrambling to avoid an eviction crisis when the national moratorium expires at the end of this month.