Dear John
In May 2020, NVAHA began tracking the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the operations, staff and clients of affordable housing, homeless and other human service providers in the Northern Virginia region. Over the next six months, as we administered a series of three surveys to 35 organizations, a picture emerged of a sector overwhelmed by an increased demand for services, coinciding with a decrease in funding and increased pandemic-related expenses.
Organizational leadership were not the only ones experiencing the dueling pressures of 2020. Staff were struggling to balance working from home with caring for children and supervising e-learning, all while worrying about long-term job security. And the residents and clients served by the organizations we surveyed were worried about meeting their basic needs – including food and housing.
In November and December, we partnered with the Northern Virginia Apartment Association to conduct a supplemental survey of small, independent market affordable property owners and managers, and the results were just as dire. In addition to lost rental income, increased vacancy rates emerged as a major source of concern. Increased vacancy rates affected the 2020 revenue of 85.71% of the market affordable properties we surveyed, and the average vacancy rate in October 2020 was more than three times the average vacancy rate in October 2019. Market affordable property owners also carried the pandemic-related expenses reported in our survey of committed affordable properties, including increased cleaning and safety-related expenses.
2020 was a year of unprecedented challenges, with many of these challenges carrying over into 2021 and beyond. Committed and market affordable property owners, human service providers and households across our region are stretched to their breaking points. As we enter a new year (and a new local budget season) a coordinated policy response is needed to ensure property owners, providers and households can continue to weather the storm.
We’ve devised a list of 5 core policy recommendations based on our COVID-19 Impact Research Initiative:
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Address barriers to rental assistance. We commend state and local policy makers for rapidly standing up and continually working to improve rental assistance programs to protect thousands of households across the Commonwealth from eviction for non-payment of rent. However, steps must be taken to ensure ALL residents can access support, including: simplifying application processes and eligibility requirements, increasing staff capacity at state and local call centers, and ensuring outreach and application materials are available in a variety of languages and formats. Assistance is also needed for expenses other than back rent, including security deposits, first month’s rent and application fees (to help reduce vacancy rates), and legal fees and court costs for households that must go to court to avoid displacement during the pandemic.
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Provide tax relief. Jurisdictions should consider temporary real estate tax relief for owners of committed and market affordable properties to offset the financial effects of the pandemic, including lost rental revenue, increased vacancy rates and increased cleaning and safety-related expenses.
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Create regional acquisition funds. Jurisdictions should stand-up a regional acquisition fund to purchase and preserve at-risk market affordable housing. Due to the financial impact of the pandemic, these opportunities are likely to arise in the coming months, but non-profit, mission-driven developers are not well-positioned to capitalize on such opportunities.
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Strengthen social safety nets. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed many holes in our nation's social safety net. In Northern Virginia, families are worried about meeting their basic needs, and non-profit organizations have stepped up to meet an unprecedented demand for services. 71.43% of the organizations we surveyed indicated that the aid funding they received was not sufficient to mitigate the long-term financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additional funding should be allocated to ensure the financial future of these organizations, which are vital to the stability of our region.
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Redefine “essential” services. Beyond housing, food and health care - the pandemic has demonstrated the essential nature of access to affordable child care, and access to broadband & appropriate devices with which to engage in telework, e-learning and tele-health appointments, and to complete employment and aid applications. These services are necessary for households to survive and thrive during the pandemic and beyond. Jurisdictions must take steps to ensure equitable access to these resources for households across our region.
View and share our infographic illustrating these recommendations.
Read our COVID-19 Impact Survey reports:
