The San Diego Housing Commission was given city and county funds topping $7 million to assist people displaced by the January floods. The funds helped those who were still using hotel vouchers when the program ended in June.
They offered 359 eligible families monthly payments up to the average rent for a two-bedroom home, and help with costs not covered by other financial assistance programs like application fees, security deposits, storage and moving costs.
Only about $1.3 million in payments have been dispersed so far — not because eligible families’ applications weren’t approved, but because even with rental assistance, affordable housing is proving very difficult to find.
The floods hit some of San Diego’s lowest-income neighborhoods the hardest, displacing mostly Black and Latino residents.
Many lived with other families or multiple roommates, and had been in their homes for a long time, said San Diego Housing Commission Vice President of Rental Assistance Azucena Valladolid.
Their rents hadn’t kept pace with San Diego’s skyrocketing market, she said. And suddenly, they’re facing rents higher than their monthly incomes.
The county’s average monthly rent for a two-bedroom home is $2,265, Valladolid said. The displaced households’ average monthly income is under $1,800 per month.
Insufficient income is the largest barrier, she said, but it’s commonly on a heap of others — eviction records and insufficient credit and employment history.
Because of these challenges, at the end of July, the commission added a lump sum cash option of up to $15,100.
More families have received assistance since the lump sum option was added, but there’s work left to be done to effectively disperse the commission’s flood recovery funds.
Valladolid said the eligible families who haven’t applied — there are still 90 of them — likely include people without a legal immigration status.
This program was specifically meant to prioritize such families, who didn’t qualify for FEMA assistance.
But Valladolid said it can be hard to convince those families that it’s safe to apply.
“They fear engaging with a government entity, even though we do not ask for any immigration status, social security numbers. None of that is the condition of the program,” she said.
The deadline is the end of August.
