Geminus rental assistance funds saved thousands of tenants from evictions

Contributed By:The 411 News

Valencia Franklin, Accounting Finance Manager at Geminus Corporation, doesn’t have data to connect her agency’s Emergency Rental Assistance program to the low number of evictions in Lake County this year but she knows 2,000 renters in the county are still in their homes since the program opened in March 2021.

Up to 15 months of rental assistance, including past due balances kept those tenants from being tossed out by their landlords.

To qualify for the program, applicants’ unpaid rents had to occur after April 1, 2020 when states across the nation mandated lockdowns and stay-at-home orders for businesses and schools because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Applicants had to prove they lost jobs, couldn’t find work, or couldn’t work because of children at home.

Applicants could also get assistance for past due gas, electricity, and heating fuel bills.

COVID-19 turned a health crisis into an economic crisis and by early summer of 2020, tens of millions of people were out of work. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Moratorium on Evictions in 2020 helped keep workers in their homes.

When the moratorium ended in January 2021, landlords could again take their tenants to court for unpaid rents and have them evicted.

Geminus’ rental assistance program received $13.5 million from the U.S. Treasury Department's Emergency Rental Assistance program to help residents of Lake County. So far, Franklin said, $11 million of it has gone to the applicants and their landlords.

The agency received 5,000 applications and is processing the remaining 3,000. Franklin said Geminus can apply for more funding since it had committed 60% of its initial grant by September. Lake County is way ahead of the rest of the state in disbursing funds, Franklin said.

In Gary City Court, Angela E. Jones, an attorney for landlords said evictions were below the levels seen in 2019. "We don't have the numbers seen pre-pandemic. I really don't know what's happening but I think they will pick up."

Lake County Sheriff Oscar Martinez told the Post-Tribune, "Lake County has completed 167 evictions out of the 1,100 court orders that have been filed between January and September. In 2019, there were more than 5,400 eviction orders in Lake County." The county sheriff executes evictions for all jurisdictions in the county.

A call to the East Chicago City Clerk Office found there were about 5 eviction proceedings in the city court.

Geminus partnered with the county, township trustees, and local nonprofits, including Lake Area United Way, Northwest Indiana Community Action, Catholic Charities, Legacy Foundation, Salvation Army, and other community outreach programs to process the applications and channel the funds.

Donna Catalano, Community Development Director at the Legacy Foundation, said the eviction moratorium and rental assistance programs also act as safety measures. Without them, the only recourse for evicted families would be doubling up in the homes of family members and friends, further increasing the risk of spreading the disease or homelessness.

“Dire straits are what people are in. Ninety percent are not collecting unemployment because they think they don’t qualify,” Catalano said.

Story Posted:09/17/2021