[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                     PROTECTING RENTERS DURING THE
                     PANDEMIC: REVIEWING REFORMS TO
                  EXPEDITE EMERGENCY RENTAL ASSISTANCE

=======================================================================

                            VIRTUAL HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                    COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                           SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services

                           Serial No. 117-45
                           
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
45-862 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2021                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------   
   

                 HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

                 MAXINE WATERS, California, Chairwoman

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York         PATRICK McHENRY, North Carolina, 
NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York             Ranking Member
BRAD SHERMAN, California             FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York           BILL POSEY, Florida
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia                 BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
AL GREEN, Texas                      BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan
EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri            ANN WAGNER, Missouri
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              ANDY BARR, Kentucky
JIM A. HIMES, Connecticut            ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                FRENCH HILL, Arkansas
JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio                   TOM EMMER, Minnesota
JUAN VARGAS, California              LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
JOSH GOTTHEIMER, New Jersey          BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas              ALEXANDER X. MOONEY, West Virginia
AL LAWSON, Florida                   WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio
MICHAEL SAN NICOLAS, Guam            TED BUDD, North Carolina
CINDY AXNE, Iowa                     DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                TREY HOLLINGSWORTH, Indiana
AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts       ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
RITCHIE TORRES, New York             JOHN ROSE, Tennessee
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts      BRYAN STEIL, Wisconsin
ALMA ADAMS, North Carolina           LANCE GOODEN, Texas
RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan              WILLIAM TIMMONS, South Carolina
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania         VAN TAYLOR, Texas
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York   PETE SESSIONS, Texas
JESUS ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
SYLVIA GARCIA, Texas
NIKEMA WILLIAMS, Georgia
JAKE AUCHINCLOSS, Massachusetts

                   Charla Ouertatani, Staff Director
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on:
    September 10, 2021...........................................     1
Appendix:
    September 10, 2021...........................................    67

                               WITNESSES
                       Friday, September 10, 2021

Morris, Kadeem, Supervising Attorney, Community Legal Services of 
  Philadelphia...................................................     5
Salazar, Margaret, Executive Director, Oregon Housing and 
  Community Services (OHCS); and Vice Chair, National Council of 
  State Housing Agencies (NCSHA).................................     7
Schwartz, David, CEO, Chairman & Co-Founder, Waterton; and Chair, 
  National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC)....................     9
Winn, Gilbert, Chief Executive Officer, WinnCompanies............    12
Yentel, Diane, President and CEO, National Low Income Housing 
  Coalition (NLIHC)..............................................    11

                                APPENDIX

Prepared statements:
    Morris, Kadeem...............................................    68
    Salazar, Margaret............................................    73
    Schwartz, David..............................................    83
    Winn, Gilbert................................................    99
    Yentel, Diane................................................   107

 
                       PROTECTING RENTERS DURING
                        THE PANDEMIC: REVIEWING
                          REFORMS TO EXPEDITE
                      EMERGENCY RENTAL ASSISTANCE

                              ----------                              


                       Friday, September 10, 2021

             U.S. House of Representatives,
                   Committee on Financial Services,
                                                   Washington, D.C.
    The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 12:09 p.m., via 
Webex, Hon. Maxine Waters [chairwoman of the committee] 
presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Waters, Sherman, Green, 
Cleaver, Perlmutter, Foster, Gottheimer, San Nicolas, Axne, 
Adams, Dean, Ocasio-Cortez, Garcia of Illinois, Garcia of 
Texas, Williams of Georgia, Auchincloss; McHenry, Posey, 
Huizenga, Wagner, Barr, Williams of Texas, Hill, Emmer, Zeldin, 
Loudermilk, Davidson, Kustoff, Gonzalez of Ohio, Rose, Steil, 
Timmons, Taylor, and Sessions.
    Chairwoman Waters. The Financial Services Committee will 
come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to 
declare a recess of the committee at any time.
    As a reminder, I ask all Members to keep themselves muted 
when they are not being recognized by the Chair. The staff has 
been instructed not to mute Members, except when a Member is 
not being recognized by the Chair, and there is inadvertent 
background noise.
    Members are also reminded that they may only participate in 
one remote proceeding at a time. If you are participating 
today, please keep your camera on, and if you choose to attend 
a different remote proceeding, please turn your camera off.
    Today's hearing is entitled, ``Protecting Renters During 
the Pandemic: Reviewing Reforms to Expedite Emergency Rental 
Assistance.''
    I now recognize myself for 4 minutes to give an opening 
statement.
    From the very beginning of this pandemic, I have sounded 
the alarm about the urgent need for congressional action to 
avert a massive spike in our national eviction crisis. As Chair 
of this committee, I understand the devastating impacts that 
evictions have on families, and I also understand how much 
landlords, particularly small, mom-and-pop landlords, are 
struggling because of unpaid rent.
    I also recognize that evictions increase the spread of 
COVID, and have the potential to seriously set back our 
national economic recovery. That is why I have worked around 
the clock on this issue.
    I am reminded, as I have worked on this issue, that we have 
extended the moratorium between the Congress of the United 
States and the CDC 6 times. Thankfully, due to the hard work of 
this committee, in 2020 Congress passed $25 billion in 
emergency rental assistance and provided an extension of the 
Federal eviction moratorium.
    Several months later, under the leadership of President 
Biden, Democrats passed an additional $21.6 billion in 
emergency rental assistance as part of the American Rescue Plan 
Act.
    But our work is not done. I am very concerned about data 
showing that State and local governments have only used 11 
percent of the $46.6 billion in emergency rental assistance 
funds that are available. There is no question that the funds 
are not reaching landlords and renters quickly or widely 
enough.
    In addition, the Supreme Court's action along partisan 
lines to lift the CDC's eviction moratorium puts millions at 
risk of eviction, even as the Delta variant causes a deadly 
resurgence of the virus.
    That is why I have introduced new legislation, the 
Expediting Assistance to Renters and Landlords Act of 2021, 
which is designed to make sure that individuals and families 
are not put out of their homes while this virus continues to 
harm communities across the country.
    This bill would allow landlords to apply directly for back 
rent they are owed, even if a renter is unresponsive, as long 
as the landlord provides notice and meets other conditions, 
including a requirement that tenants may not be evicted for at 
least 120 days, and that the landlords would be paid for those 
120 days following the first request for assistance.
    The legislation would also require grantees receiving 
emergency rental assistance funds to accept attestations from 
tenants, and to provide funds directly to tenants when the 
landlord is unresponsive or refuses to participate.
    The legislation also gears up outreach. Working very 
closely with the Treasury, we have come up with many ways to 
modify these applications. So the legislation, again, also 
gears up outreach to increase public awareness of the 
availability of emergency rental assistance funds, providing 
funding for mailings, radio, TV, and internet ads, and ensures 
that grantees have the resources and help to get the funds out 
the door.
    These steps and others in the bill will cut down barriers 
preventing the robust rental assistance funding that Congress 
has provided from reaching renters.
    Today, we will also discuss legislation that Ranking Member 
McHenry has introduced regarding rental assistance.
    While I have some serious concerns with the ranking 
member's bill, I believe that we are aligned in our goal to 
expedite assistance to those in need, so I want to work with 
him, and I am hopeful that we can work together and that this 
could be a bipartisan bill. I look forward to discussing both 
bills with our panel of experts today.
    I now recognize the ranking member of the committee, the 
gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. McHenry, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for holding 
today's hearing, and thank you for those encouraging words of 
outreach now that we are 5 months past when committee 
Republicans filed our bill, the Renter Protection Act. And I 
want to thank you for attaching that bill, which is supported 
by every Republican on the committee, to this hearing.
    The bill makes common-sense reforms to Treasury's rental 
assistance programs to get help to renters and landlords now. 
It is a bill we should have considered months ago, before the 
eviction moratorium expired, and before renters and landlords 
had the rug pulled out from underneath them.
    Committee Republicans have been raising the alarm since it 
became clear that the Treasury Department was failing to get 
renter relief out the door. To state the obvious, the Emergency 
Rental Assistance Program isn't working.
    Congress gave the Treasury Department more than $46 billion 
to help renters and property owners survive the pandemic. Back 
in May, I asked Treasury to provide basic data that would help 
us understand where all that money is and why it hasn't reached 
renters. They couldn't answer those questions. And they still 
can't.
    We had a hearing late in July with the HUD Secretary, who 
was profoundly unprepared to answer basic questions about this 
important program. We asked, ``Is rental assistance money being 
used to help COVID-impacted families?'' and she told us, ``I 
have no idea.'' Let me repeat that. The HUD Secretary said, ``I 
have no idea.'' That is unacceptable.
    The whole process has been unacceptable. It has been 2 
months since the Federal eviction moratorium expired, and 
several weeks since the Supreme Court struck down President 
Biden's last-minute extension, and here we are, again, asking, 
why isn't the program working and how can we fix it?
    Is Secretary Yellen here? No. Did the Majority invite her? 
No. And she is in charge of deploying these moneys. Committee 
Republicans did invite her, and to no one's surprise, she 
didn't agree to come. And, again, she didn't come to answer 
these basic questions that we all have, on both sides of the 
aisle.
    Three days ago, Democrats finally put forward their 
alternative. You may have not heard or read about it, so I will 
summarize it for you: more red tape; more bureaucracy; and more 
delays. Simply put, the Democrats' bill will not fix the Biden 
Administration's abject failure.
    Here is what we should be doing. First, we should 
consolidate all of the rental assistance programs into one 
easy-to-manage program for localities to administer.
    Second, we need to reform the program so that money goes to 
property owners to settle back debts, so that families can stay 
in their homes.
    Third, we need to make it easier for property owners to 
participate on behalf of residents.
    And finally, we have to require grantees to move faster, 
for example, by accepting bulk applications.
    It seems like Democrats in Washington forgot that the 
purpose of the program is to pay back rent. This isn't 
difficult. To get the program back on track, it simply requires 
that our solutions be targeted, timely, and tied to COVID. But 
the bill put forward by Democrats would only make things worse, 
not better.
    So, instead of actually solving problems today, there will 
be more finger-pointing at the previous Administration by my 
Democrat friends, and more proposals to empower liberal 
activists by my Democrat friends, and zero plans to hold the 
Biden Administration accountable for their failures, which is 
very typical of my Democrat friends right now. This is a shame.
    Since it appears our bill won't get a fair shake in this 
committee this morning, I filed a discharge petition for the 
Renter Protection Act. I would encourage every Member to sign 
onto it.
    And with that, I look forward to the panel, and I yield 
back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Much of what the 
ranking member is saying needs to be done, is in this bill.
    The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Cleaver, is recognized for 
one minute.
    Mr. Cleaver. Thank you. The legislation being discussed at 
this hearing, the Expediting Assistance to Renters and 
Landlords Act of 2021, proposes several changes to Emergency 
Rental Assistance (ERA) 1 and ERA 2 which will ensure that the 
Federal emergency rental assistance funding that we fought so 
hard for on this committee is continuing to reach those who are 
in need.
    As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to surge, far too many 
American families have been, and will be subject to the horrors 
of an eviction. Many small landlords who have invested their 
retirement incomes now have to worry about whether or not their 
property will go into foreclosure.
    Like many of you, I have been frustrated at the slow pace 
at which State and local governments have been implementing the 
Emergency Rental Assistance Program, and there is no time to 
waste in making the reforms necessary to get funds out the door 
as quickly and efficiently as possible.
    I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses, and I 
want to thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for your leadership, and 
for convening this hearing. Thank you very much. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. You are so welcome.
    I now recognize the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Hill, for 
one minute.
    Mr. Hill. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    Where is Secretary Yellen? It has been 5 months since the 
Treasury Secretary testified before our committee. Yet, the 
Biden Administration seems to feel no sense of urgency to help 
renters and mom-and-pop landlords who need it most, no sense of 
responsibility to answer to Congress, and no sense of shame 
over a complete mishandling of the Emergency Rental Assistance 
Program.
    Instead, we have the distinguished chairman from South 
Carolina, Mr. Clyburn, browbeating governors and trying to 
shift blame to them from the Treasury Secretary. It is a 
mistake, and we are hurting over a million families who are 
estimated to be evicted in the next couple of months.
    Republicans have a better solution, the Renter Protection 
Act, which would simplify the needlessly-complicated Rental 
Assistance Program, get the money out faster, and actually help 
the people that Congress intended to help: those who lost their 
jobs and got behind on their rent due to COVID-19.
    If my friends across the aisle are serious about a 
solution, I urge my friends to include the Renter Protection 
Act in Monday's committee action.
    Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
    I want to welcome today's distinguished witnesses to the 
committee. First, we have Mr. Kadeem Morris, a supervising 
attorney with Community Legal Services of Philadelphia.
    Second, we have Ms. Margaret Salazar, the executive 
director of the Oregon Housing and Community Services 
Department.
    Third, we have Mr. David Schwartz, the CEO, chairman, and 
co-founder of Waterton, and the chair of the National 
Multifamily Housing Council.
    Fourth, we have Ms. Diane Yentel, the president and CEO of 
the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
    Now, I will recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. 
Lynch, to introduce our last witness.
    Mr. Lynch?
    Is Mr. Lynch on the platform?
    Okay. Well, while we are waiting for Mr. Lynch, who wanted 
very much to introduce this witness, I will move on, and I will 
introduce Mr. Gilbert Winn, the CEO of WinnCompanies.
    Each of you will have 5 minutes to summarize your 
testimony. You should be able to see a timer on your screen 
that will indicate how much time you have left, and a chime 
will go off at the end of your time. I would ask you to be 
mindful of the timer, and quickly wrap up your testimony if you 
hear the chime. And without objection, your written statements 
will be made a part of the record.
    Mr. Morris, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to present 
your oral testimony.

  STATEMENT OF KADEEM MORRIS, SUPERVISING ATTORNEY, COMMUNITY 
                 LEGAL SERVICES OF PHILADELPHIA

    Mr. Morris. Good afternoon. My name is Kadeem Morris, and I 
am a supervising attorney in the housing unit of Community 
Legal Services of Philadelphia. Community Legal Services helps 
more than 10,000 people per year with legal problems that 
threaten their home, health, and income, and more than 2,300 
households per year who are facing evictions due to the COVID-
19 pandemic.
    I would like to thank Chairwoman Maxine Waters and the 
members of the House Committee on Financial Services for 
inviting me to speak today.
    The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the pre-existing 
housing crisis in the United States, causing more people to 
join the ranks of the housing insecure. The ability to access 
safe and affordable housing is not guaranteed in the United 
States. However, the collateral consequences when a family is 
evicted are clear and immediate.
    The faces of the evicted are the faces of the vulnerable 
members of society. Studies have found that single mothers, 
most commonly Black and Brown, make up the majority of those 
affected by evictions and forced moves, the grim reality in 
Philadelphia, where 71 percent of the annual eviction cases are 
filed against communities of color.
    The pandemic has exacerbated difficulties for these 
communities, mainly Black, Brown, seniors, and people living 
with disabilities. These communities are most likely to have 
lost income during the pandemic, putting them at greater risk 
of an eviction filing and subsequent homelessness and housing 
instability beyond the pandemic.
    The health consequences combined with the financial 
hardship of having your job disappear has shattered the already 
shaky foundation upon which vulnerable families stood. People 
who were struggling to make ends meet before the pandemic were 
forced to make the bitter choice of risking their health and 
the health of the families that they live with by working 
during the pandemic and potentially contracting the virus, or 
facing the long-term consequences of unemployment and increased 
household expenses.
    In Philadelphia, the effects of delivery of rental 
assistance to vulnerable households has prevented displacement 
and, as a result, prevented the community spread of COVID-19.
    The Philadelphia Eviction Diversion Program partners with 
the City's Emergency Rental Assistance Program to ensure that 
people are able to access assistance for the benefit of both 
landlords and tenants. Through targeted outreach and supportive 
services, Philadelphia was able to build a rental assistance 
program that could preserve the landlord/tenant ecosystem.
    The demographic data provided by the City of Philadelphia 
demonstrates that rental assistance dollars are reaching 
vulnerable communities: 65 percent of the families assisted 
were Black or African American; 60 percent of the applicants 
were female; and over 70 percent of the households served had a 
household income below 30 percent of the area median income.
    Landlords who were struggling with their mortgages were 
paid, and tenants who were behind on their rent were not 
displaced.
    The Eviction Diversion Program provides a forum by which 
landlords and tenants can meet and discuss issues without the 
pressure of a court filing. The program also uses highly-
skilled, impartial mediators to create a forum where landlords 
and tenants can resolve issues, and tenants are automatically 
assigned a housing counselor who works with them throughout the 
process, assisting them with the rental assistance application, 
and coordinating any other supportive services.
    For rental assistance programs to operate effectively, 
administrators cannot create additional hoops for tenants and 
landlords to have to jump through. If the stated goal of the 
program is to prevent evictions of vulnerable households, the 
municipalities and other administrators should limit the amount 
of paperwork and forms of verification that tenants and 
landlords need to submit.
    Under the American Rescue Plan, households who have not 
experienced a change in income, but have experienced an 
increase of expenses, are eligible to apply. This opens the 
door for a significant portion of the population, including the 
elderly and disabled, to participate in the program.
    Increased expenses during the pandemic are reflected in the 
cost of food, cost of transportation, and often, the cost of 
burying family members who have suffered from COVID. These 
vulnerable households are bearing the increased costs without 
an increase in income, and most are unable to afford market-
rate rent based on their income.
    Sadly, H.R. 3913, the Renter Protection Act, proposes to 
limit the usage of the unspent funds under the American Rescue 
Plan. If getting the money out to landlords and tenants is a 
top priority, the Federal Government should not take any steps 
to limit the flexibility that is currently given to program 
administrators, and set up both programs and supportive 
services that gets the money paid out.
    The proposed changes outlined in the Emergency Rental 
Assistance Program in H.R. 5196, the Expediting Assistance to 
Renters and Landlords Act, are vital to the survival of the 
landlord/tenant ecosystem.
    Providing flexibility for landlords to apply without 
tenants who are unresponsive, requiring grantees to inform 
those tenants that their arrearage has been paid, and that they 
are covered by the 120-day eviction prohibition places 
landlords and tenants on even footing by allowing tenants to 
self-advocate with the information.
    The satisfaction of outstanding money judgments and the 
sealing of cases are vital, as evictions have long-term 
consequences.
    In closing, I would like to encourage the Federal 
Government to take steps to adopt the proposed changes outlined 
in H.R. 5196, and make it easier and create additional 
flexibility for agencies to administer their rental assistance 
programs. Thank you for your time.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Morris can be found on page 
68 of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Waters. Next, we will go to Ms. Salazar. You are 
now recognized for 5 minutes to present your oral testimony.

   STATEMENT OF MARGARET SALAZAR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OREGON 
HOUSING AND COMMUNITY SERVICES (OHCS); AND VICE CHAIR, NATIONAL 
           COUNCIL OF STATE HOUSING AGENCIES (NCSHA)

    Ms. Salazar. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member 
McHenry, and members of the committee. Thank you for the 
opportunity to testify today. For the record, my name is 
Margaret Salazar, and I am the executive director of the Oregon 
Housing and Community Services Department, and I also serve as 
the vice chair of the National Council of State Housing 
Agencies (NCSHA).
    My agency, like 27 other State housing finance agencies 
(HFAs), serves as a Statewide administrator of the Emergency 
Rental Assistance Program. Every month, State ERA 
administrators have increased the rate at which they have 
distributed assistance. States delivered more than $1.6 billion 
in the month of August, the highest level of any month to date.
    State programs, on average, have funded more than one-third 
of the applications that they have received, with many funding 
50 percent or more.
    The ERA Program has provided a lifeline to more than 1 
million vulnerable renters, and made thousands of landlords 
whole. Since the beginning of this calendar year, my agency, 
OHCS, has obligated more than $204 million in rental 
assistance.
    This is the equivalent of our entire ERA 1 allocation, but 
it represents a combination of both State and Federal funds. Of 
this total, nearly $35 million is Federal ERA assistance.
    In the last month, our agency has taken bold action to 
speed up application processing. We have hired more than 60 
temporary staff, and brought on an outside vendor to boost 
capacity for our local partners on the ground. We have created 
self-attestation forms, disseminated informational videos, and 
translated materials into multiple languages. We have partnered 
with community-based organizations to increase outreach and 
support, particularly in communities of color.
    But there are limits to what ERA can achieve as currently 
authorized. We agree with Chairwoman Waters that legislation is 
needed to further reform this program, to greatly strengthen 
its effectiveness.
    NCSHA supports Chairwoman Waters' Expediting Assistance to 
Renters and Landlords Act. We also encourage you to make 
several additional statutory improvements to further strengthen 
the program, which are in my written statement.
    Any ERA program reforms must reflect the fundamental 
balances that agencies at all levels of government must strike. 
The first is balancing renter protection with landlord 
participation. NCSHA has repeatedly acknowledged the 
extraordinary efforts of landlords to keep tenants safely 
housed during this pandemic. While some landlords have declined 
to participate in rental assistance programs, others have been 
unable to do so, because a tenant is not responsive or has 
vacated the unit, leaving the landlord with unpaid arrears.
    We support the provisions in Chairwoman Waters' proposal, 
to allow landlords to apply for ERA on behalf of tenants even 
if the landlord is unable to gain the renters' consent, or 
because the tenant is not responsive or has vacated the 
property.
    The second important balance is between equity, efficiency, 
and accountability. ERA administrators have been accused of 
unnecessarily prioritizing documentation requirements to 
prevent fraud over the urgent need to make rental assistance 
available. But even with the new flexibilities in U.S. Treasury 
rules as of 2 weeks ago, the ERA statute and Treasury 
requirements still impose significant accountability on ERA 
administrators.
    Our experience in the field tells us that verbal assurances 
from U.S. Treasury will not guide Federal agency oversight, 
either through Federal or State or local audits.
    State and local officials are on the line for meeting this 
unprecedented emergency, and we are acting in good faith while 
we work to balance urgency and accountability.
    We support the provisions in Chairwoman Waters' proposal 
that would provide a safe harbor to grantees so that they would 
not be subject to liability, to repay assistance provided in 
good faith, relying on the attestation of the tenant.
    The third balance is between current and coming demand. My 
team in Oregon and my colleagues around the country are 
committed to helping as many eligible renters, as quickly as 
possible. We understand the urgency. The unevenness of the 
economic recovery and the clear demand for the program suggest 
that ERA will become even more needed in the months ahead.
    In addition, there are indications that utility arrearages 
remain substantial. Estimates of unpaid utilities range from 
$10 billion to $30 billion.
    We also support the provision in Chairwoman Waters' 
proposal that would extend the time period during which an 
individual household may receive ERA assistance to up to 24 
months.
    The Administration has accurately said that the launch of 
ERA required building a new national infrastructure for rental 
assistance and eviction prevention that did not previously 
exist.
    Additional improvements to the ERA statute can help build 
out that infrastructure for an even greater impact.
    Thank you, and I will be glad to answer any questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Salazar can be found on page 
73 of the appendix.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much, Ms. Salazar.
    Mr. Schwartz, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to 
present your oral testimony.

   STATEMENT OF DAVID SCHWARTZ, CEO, CHAIRMAN & CO-FOUNDER, 
   WATERTON; AND CHAIR, NATIONAL MULTIFAMILY HOUSING COUNCIL 
                             (NMHC)

    Mr. Schwartz. Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member McHenry, 
and members of the committee, it is my privilege to appear 
before you today to speak on behalf of the multifamily rental 
housing industry, the National Multifamily Housing Council, the 
National Apartment Association, and our nation's 40 million 
apartment households on the urgent reforms needed to the 
Emergency Rental Assistance Program, or ERAP.
    My name is David Schwartz, and I am CEO and chairman of 
Waterton, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, with regional 
offices throughout the United States. Waterton is a real estate 
investment and property management company with a focus on U.S. 
multifamily properties.
    I am also the current chair of the National Multihousing 
Council, or NMHC.
    Our country has faced unprecedented challenges for the past 
18 months, creating significant hardships for America's renters 
and jeopardizing the stability of the housing sector. We 
commend the work of this committee in creating the Emergency 
Rental Assistance Program, and appreciate your continued work 
to ensure the ability of ERAP to serve those in need.
    Throughout this crisis, rental housing owners and operators 
have continuously worked to address the needs of our residents, 
employees, and communities, deploying various means to 
accommodate the housing challenges presented by COVID-19, 
despite their own financial uncertainty and economic losses.
    The apartment industry knows better than anyone the 
importance of providing a safe, secure place to call home, and 
it is a responsibility we do not take lightly.
    But the housing industry cannot shoulder COVID-relief 
efforts alone. Moreover, housing providers were severely 
impacted by eviction moratoriums which just merely shifted the 
economic hardships of the pandemic to housing providers.
    One-size-fits-all Federal moratoriums were, and are, 
unsustainable, and fail to address the underlying financial 
distress of residents.
    Instead, ERAP is a critical stabilizer for residents and 
housing providers alike, and the most effective mitigation tool 
at our disposal. This is why it is urgent to focus on 
implementing workable solutions for renters and housing 
providers facing barriers and delays in the distribution of 
vital rental assistance funds.
    The apartment industry is playing a key role in helping 
execute the Rental Assistance Program and to secure benefits 
for their residents. Given the widely varying nature of rental 
assistance programs, and the multijurisdictional footprint of 
many apartment firms, this necessitates a significant 
commitment of resources and staff to vet dozens, or even 
hundreds of programs, with differing eligibility, application, 
and distribution policies.
    We applaud this committee's focus on reforming the program, 
and appreciate that H.R. 5196, the Expediting Assistance to 
Renters and Landlords Act of 2021, and H.R. 3913, the Renter 
Protection Act of 2021, address many of our concerns.
    My written testimony provides detailed recommendations for 
unlocking the flow of ERAP funds and addressing barriers to the 
delivery of relief to those in need.
    In particular, we support efforts to help jurisdictions 
ramp up delivery of rental assistance benefits, including 
streamlining onerous application documentation requirements, 
ensuring eligibility aligns with those residents in need of 
support, leveraging housing provider capabilities to assist 
with application processes, and embracing practices and 
technologies with proven operational success.
    Importantly, we caution against the imposition of new 
program requirements unrelated to the accelerated distribution 
of funds that further or create new barriers to participation 
in ERAP programs.
    Instead, we urge a singular focus on those efforts that can 
lessen the burden of program administrators and applicants 
while improving the outflow of benefits.
    There is also a pressing need to address the ability to 
secure ERAP funds when residents are unwilling or unable to 
cooperate with the application process. Congress must enable 
housing providers to apply for rental assistance on behalf of 
residents who are unresponsive, have vacated units, or are 
otherwise unavailable.
    Without action to address ERAP's current limitations and 
increased participation in the program, renters are faced with 
further uncertainty and a mounting debt cliff, while housing 
providers are forced to address rental losses through 
foreclosure, bankruptcy, removal of the property from the 
rental stack, and other measures with long-term market impacts.
    We are dedicated to working in partnership with 
policymakers at all levels on addressing the challenges of 
COVID-19, while advancing proven solutions for long-term 
housing affordability.
    This committee's attention to addressing the root causes of 
housing instability is vital, and we are committed to efforts 
that would bolster housing assistance to renters, increase 
housing provider participation in Federal housing programs, 
break down barriers to provision of rental housing, and 
increase housing of choice for renters.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Schwartz can be found on 
page 83 of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you, Mr. Schwartz.
    Ms. Yentel, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to present 
your oral testimony.

  STATEMENT OF DIANE YENTEL, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NATIONAL LOW 
                INCOME HOUSING COALITION (NLIHC)

    Ms. Yentel. Thank you. Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member 
McHenry, and members of the committee, thank you for the 
opportunity to testify today.
    When the Supreme Court lifted the Federal eviction 
moratorium, it eliminated the last Federal protection keeping 
6.5 million families who were behind on their rent stably 
housed. The unprecedented resources that Congress provided for 
emergency rental assistance has yet to reach many of them. Now, 
they are at risk of losing their homes as the Delta variant 
surges.
    The urgency of getting assistance to tenants and landlords 
cannot be overstated, but many communities are spending their 
ERA allocations much too slowly. Just $7.5 billion of the first 
$25 billion of ERA has been spent or obligated. While ERA 
helped nearly 1 million households through July, at least 
another 1.2 million submitted applications but have yet to 
receive aid.
    Many others struggle to complete applications due to 
complexity, inaccessibility, or documentation requirements. 
Some programs are successfully scaling up. New Jersey, 
Virginia, Texas, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C., have all 
spent over half of their ERA 1.
    Six States have spent more than 30 percent, and several 
States have made major recent improvements. Dozens of cities 
have spent over 70 percent of their ERA 1. These programs make 
clear that success is possible.
    But they are outliers. Seventeen States and many localities 
have spent less than 10 percent of their first ERA allocation. 
Some were slowed down by State legislatures or city councils. A 
few received more ERA than needed due to Congress' faulty 
formula allocation. Many struggle with landlords' refusal to 
participate in programs.
    But the primary issue with slow ERA spending is that many 
programs are not following clear Treasury and White House 
guidance and are not adopting evidence-based best practices.
    Slow-spending ERA programs tend to do little outreach. They 
don't hire enough staff to process applications. They have long 
and complicated applications with overly burdensome 
documentation requirements.
    For example, fewer than 17 percent of programs explicitly 
allow renters to use self-attestation to document income or 
housing instability, this, despite Treasury guidance that has, 
since March, allowed self-attestation for all eligibility 
criteria.
    Only 28 percent of programs explicitly allow direct-to-
tenant assistance, despite it being permissible and critical to 
keeping renters housed when landlords refuse to participate.
    It is unfortunately clear by now that if flexibilities and 
best practices remain optional, many programs will not adopt 
them. So, the Biden Administration should continue to use all 
available tools, including their ability to recapture and 
reallocate ERA funds, to require best practices in all 
programs.
    And Congress should consider statutory changes to turn 
flexibilities and best practices into requirements.
    Legislation introduced by Chairwoman Waters builds off of 
existing Treasury guidance, and addresses the root causes of 
slow ERA spending.
    NLIHC has deep reservations about allowing landlords to 
receive ERA without tenant involvement. The legislation 
provides important protections in such cases to lessen fraud or 
tenant harassment. These protections must remain and be 
expanded as the bill moves forward.
    Congressman McHenry's legislation would halt most program 
spending by first requiring Treasury to rescind and redo 
guidance, then requiring programs to make changes counter to 
best practices, and by prohibiting use of ERA funds for needed 
staffing or technology. The bill would ensure that the needs of 
many landlords and renters go unmet.
    There are proven and simple ways for ERA programs to 
expedite assistance: hire staff; do robust outreach; simplify 
applications; use self-attestations; and provide direct-to-
tenant assistance.
    The best programs are already doing this. Those that aren't 
should course-correct as Texas, California, New York, and 
Connecticut have done, and as South Carolina and Arkansas 
announced recently that they will do.
    For those that don't or won't, both the Biden 
Administration and Congress should require these improvements.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I look 
forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Yentel can be found on page 
107 of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much, Ms. Yentel.
    And Mr. Winn, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to 
present your oral testimony.

      STATEMENT OF GILBERT WINN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 
                         WINNCOMPANIES

    Mr. Winn. Good afternoon. Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member 
McHenry, and members of the committee, it is my privilege to 
appear before you today to speak on behalf of our organization, 
WinnCompanies, and the more than 300,000 residents who call our 
apartment communities home. Thank you for this invitation.
    My name is Gilbert Winn, and I am the CEO of Winn, a 
developer, owner, and manager of multifamily housing founded in 
Boston 50 years ago. WinnCompanies is the largest operator of 
affordable housing, and the sixth largest multifamily operator 
of housing in the country.
    We manage over 600 rental communities, on behalf of a 
diverse range of clients--private owners of all types, 
nonprofit groups, community development corporations, tenant-
owned affordable co-ops, and even public housing authorities.
    We manage mixed-income communities with local housing 
programs or Federal programs like Section 8, or low-income 
housing tax credits. We manage naturally occurring affordable 
housing as well. We also manage more than 10,000 unrestricted 
market ratings.
    WinnCompanies works in 23 States, in diverse geographies, 
from the Northeast, to the South, to the West. Our company is 
also one of the nation's largest providers of housing-based 
community services.
    Why is this background important? Because it illustrates 
that we bring an informed firsthand perspective, covering 
nearly all constituencies of what is and what isn't working on 
the ground when it comes to emergency rental assistance, and 
the goals generally of housing stability and eviction 
diversion.
    As both an owner and an operator, we play a direct role on 
the ground in fulfilling the dual intent of the ERAP program, 
which is both to assist renters and to assist landlords.
    Today, I will first talk about our housing stability goals 
and the fundamental importance of rent collection in that 
endeavor. I will then detail the specific successes and 
challenges we faced in accessing the ERAP program.
    And I will conclude with our proposed revisions that we 
think should be urgently implemented to make it more efficient.
    While we are here to discuss the ERAP program, we all 
understand it is but one component of housing stability. In 
early 2020, WinnCompanies launched a holistic national housing 
stability program. The goal was to reduce non-payment rent 
evictions by 50 percent across our portfolio through a 
combination of upstream, consistent interventions.
    The result is that WinnCompanies has had zero evictions for 
nonpayment of rent since the start of the pandemic. These 
results, and our program, have been recognized by my fellow 
witnesses here at NMHC, and the National Low Income Housing 
Coalition.
    As we are all gathered here today, it should be no surprise 
that emergency rental assistance is the single-most important 
component of that housing stability program in avoiding 
evictions. We know this from experience, and we applaud this 
committee for recognizing the need for reforms.
    We understand that this $46 billion program was designed to 
assist both tenants and owners. This is not a choice between 
renters and profits. Rent is fundamental to the ability of our 
company and our clients, particularly our nonprofit owners, to 
operate and maintain existing apartment communities and to 
build affordable housing in the future. It is a virtuous 
ecosystem.
    In addition to mortgage payments and real estate taxes, as 
rent goes uncollected, variable operating costs that affect 
everybody's quality of life must be decreased, such as 
preventative maintenance, landscaping, security, trash pickup, 
and resident services.
    Staff hours at each property are cut if this happens, which 
means the paychecks of frontline workers are decreased.
    All in all, I am very proud of how the multifamily industry 
has stepped up during this pandemic. The vast majority of 
owners and operators are on the front lines, keeping homes safe 
and occupied.
    Now, in terms of ERAP, we have extended tremendous time, 
effort, and resources in order to make the rollout of the 
program as successful as possible.
    We have participated in 20 working groups across the 
country to design and administer the funds. We have 
participated in forums held by the apartment industry and the 
legal services community.
    At the State level, we have worked with leadership to 
address program glitches in portals and application processes. 
At the local level, we help convene our peers to share best 
practices.
    We have held 54 separate, 2-hour trainings to walk our team 
members through every step of their areas' individual ERA 
processes.
    In terms of tenant communication and partnership, we have 
established contacts with administrative teams, created 
marketing materials, and begun a near-constant tenant outreach 
campaign in every apartment community, including engaging with 
local churches, schools, youth organizations--
    Chairwoman Waters. Mr. Winn, your time has expired. Thank 
you very much for your testimony.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Winn can be found on page 99 
of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Waters. I now recognize myself for 5 minutes for 
questions. Mr. Schwartz, Ms. Yentel, I am troubled by the 
number of landlords and renters who remain unaware of the 
availability of rental assistance. According to the Urban 
Institute, more than half of renters and 40 percent of 
landlords are still unaware of Federal assistance.
    I would like to share with you a little story about 
something that I was involved in just a week or so ago. I know 
a landlord with 5,000 units. I went to him to ask him what was 
going on with his rental units. He told me that only 40 percent 
of his renters had applied. I asked him why, and he said he did 
not know.
    And then I asked him, Have you ever thought about using 
your community rooms with a person, or persons, and a computer 
or so, to invite your renters to come to get assistance in 
applying for rental assistance? He said, no, they had not done 
that.
    I went a step further. I called Legal Aid, I put them 
together, and I taught him how to do the notices to pin to the 
doors to let people know that assistance was available now in 
the community area of one of the largest of his complexes, for 
them to come.
    On the first day, 90 renters showed up. Legal Aid showed up 
with organizers and one or two lawyers, and they assisted 
everybody who came that day in applying for rental assistance.
    Now, you talk a lot about what you have done, Mr. Winn. 
Have you seen anything like the operation that I just described 
to you?
    Mr. Winn. I'm sorry, Chairwoman Waters. Can you repeat 
that?
    Chairwoman Waters. Okay. Would anyone else like to respond 
to that? Ms. Yentel?
    Ms. Yentel. Yes, Chairwoman Waters, thank you. I have seen 
some communities doing that kind of robust and equitable 
outreach that you mentioned. That is exactly the kind of 
outreach that is needed in local communities.
    But there are many communities where that is not happening, 
and as you say, we are seeing a significant number of both 
landlords and tenants not being aware that emergency rental 
assistance is available in their communities, or not knowing 
how to access it.
    This could be a result of language barriers. It could be 
challenges with various access to technology, or it could be 
simply that the education, the outreach, is not happening.
    So, we urge program administrators to work with community-
based organizations who have trusted relationships in some of 
the more marginalized communities where some of the greatest--
    Chairwoman Waters. Okay, Ms. Yentel. Thank you very much. I 
want to move on to--Mr. Schwartz, have you seen the kind of 
operation that I just described to you, where the landlords use 
their community rooms, or their space, to invite in the renters 
with notices that they put on their door, and then they get the 
assistance?
    I added to it Legal Aid, because I brought Legal Aid in to 
do it, but I think the landlords ought to be thinking about 
doing it. What do you think?
    Mr. Winn. Yes. With our own experience, and I know our 
peers, other operators in our industry are opening up business 
centers. The people in most need, the lowest income, may not 
have access to computers or WiFi.
    The application process is very cumbersome. In your State 
of California, there are 18 pages of manual input, and it is 
very complex. A lot of our residents only speak Spanish, and a 
lot of the forms are only in English, so we have to bring 
bilingual employees on our team to help them translate it.
    A lot of the forms or the websites require downloading 
paperwork, like proof of loss of job, or paycheck stubs. A lot 
of the residents don't have scanners, so we have to help them 
scan it into the system--look, we are all motivated as 
landlords to assist our residents because we benefit from the 
ERAP as much as they do. But the system is so cumbersome that 
it involves a lot of manhours, and our industry is doing a 
great job shouldering that--
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much, Mr. Schwartz. Do 
you think the self-attestations will help? And this is 
something we have worked on very closely with the Treasury. Do 
you think that will help?
    Mr. Schwartz. Absolutely. We are big proponents of it, with 
respect to proof of tenancy, where they don't have to download 
a copy of a lease--that is hard for a lot of our residents--
housing instability, self-attestation income, which means you 
would have to download a paycheck stub. All of these are 
barriers, and slow the system down.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. 
Schwartz. I'm sorry, my time is up.
    And now, I will recognize the gentleman from North 
Carolina, Mr. McHenry, the ranking member of the committee, for 
5 minutes.
    Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Last December, 
Congress enacted the rental emergency assistance program in a 
bipartisan way. And then in March, the Democrats did their 
partisan bill, and had a new rental assistance program.
    We have two separate rental assistance programs at this 
point, and Treasury has a set of rules that are different on 
implementing these programs.
    So my question to you, Mr. Winn, is, given how disastrous 
the rollout has been and the slow spending rates of getting 
money out the door to help renters, do you think it is better 
to combine these programs, number one; and number two, do you 
think the focus on getting people's back rent paid should be 
the primary view or the primary goal of the program?
    Mr. Winn. Yes, I agree on both. I think the consolidation 
of the programs will remove a lot of busy work and a lot of 
uncertainty for both the landlords and the residents.
    Also, the point of back rent is critical. A lot of 
landlords don't wish to participate in the program if they are 
only getting paid for the current delinquency. If somebody 
moved out and they can't get paid for that past delinquency, 
they are not going to be utilizing the program.
    And that is, in fact, what has been happening. There are 
many residents, who, when it comes time, are leaving with 
unpaid balances and are not able to complete applications.
    Mr. McHenry. Ms. Yentel, under this bill, H.R. 5196, I 
would ask how imposing both new regulatory and statutory 
conditions on landlords actually speeds up assistance to 
renters?
    Ms. Yentel. There are many ways that Chairwoman Waters' 
legislation would speed up assistance--by requiring self-
attestation, by requiring direct-to-tenant assistance, by 
getting at the root causes of slow ERA spending. 
Unfortunately--
    Mr. McHenry. So, how is that different? Direct-to-renter 
assistance, how is that different now than under this new bill?
    Ms. Yentel. It is currently optional, and only 28 percent 
of programs utilize it. So when landlords refuse to participate 
in a majority of programs--
    Mr. McHenry. Okay. So, under this bill, Ms. Yentel, under 
5196, how do you encourage landlords to participate when you 
are putting in place new hoops to get money that they are 
legally owed? How does that actually help?
    Ms. Yentel. The only place where new hoops, as you call it, 
are put in place--I would call them essential protections for 
tenants--are where we are changing the program to allow for 
direct-to-landlord assistance without any tenant involvement at 
all. These protections are essential to--
    Mr. McHenry. Okay. But that is one change.
    Ms. Yentel. --limit tenant harassment.
    Mr. McHenry. So, how about another change here? The bill 
requires grantees to provide information to renters on how to 
sue a landlord if a landlord follows the rules and receives the 
assistance on their behalf. How does that actually encourage 
landlords to participate?
    Ms. Yentel. Well, it doesn't at all. What the legislation 
would do, again, only in cases where we are changing the 
programs to allow landlords to receive assistance without any 
tenant involvement at all, it would require assurances that the 
landlord is using those resources to pay the arrears that are 
owed, and that the tenant is no longer responsible for those 
arrears, which is why assurances--
    Mr. McHenry. So what you are saying is that providing 
information on complaints against landlords helps expedite the 
distribution of assistance to households and families? Is that 
what you are saying?
    Ms. Yentel. What I am saying is that in cases where we 
change a program and allow for a landlord to receive assistance 
without the essential protection of tenant involvement in that 
application, that there be protections for those tenants and 
that there be protections against fraud.
    Mr. McHenry. And in the real world, landlords would think 
this is a great new program to participate in, to encourage the 
people renting from them to sue them.
    Ms. Yentel, I know you have a significant involvement with 
my Democrat colleagues on housing. Were you or any of your 
staff involved in the technical drafting of H.R. 5196?
    Ms. Yentel. In the technical drafting of it? No. That is 
certainly not our job. We have advised Chairwoman Waters--
    Mr. McHenry. Advised, sure.
    Ms. Yentel. --and her staff about recommendations--
    Mr. McHenry. Okay. And as president and CEO of your 
organization, I am curious if your organization stands to 
benefit financially if this bill is enacted?
    Ms. Yentel. No.
    Mr. McHenry. So, your organization would not receive any 
dollars under Section 6 of this bill?
    Ms. Yentel. I can't speak to what Section 6 is off the top 
of my head, but we receive zero Federal funding. We have no 
Federal contracts. We don't contract with States or 
localities--
    Mr. McHenry. It is not a contract. And under this bill, it 
would change to nonprofit entities that primarily provide 
housing services would be eligible for these moneys. And so--
    Ms. Yentel. We would be eligible, and we recommended that--
    Mr. McHenry. --it raises the question. If you have 
certified--if you have testified that you will not receive a 
dime under this bill, we will make sure that we note that in 
the record.
    With that, Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Let us remember, 
the centerpiece of this program is such that it allows 
landlords for the first time to be able to apply for the rental 
assistance, and they have 10 days in which to notify the 
tenant. And they can talk in that time, and maybe during that 
time, the renter will say, ``Well, I will do it,'' but this 
is--
    Mr. McHenry. Madam Chairwoman, is this your time or my 
time? Is this your time or my time to debate?
    Chairwoman Waters. The Chair now recognizes the gentlewoman 
from New York, Mrs. Maloney, who is also the Chair of the House 
Committee on Oversight and Reform, for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Maloney. Thank you. Thank you all for your testimony 
today, and thank you, Chairwoman Waters, for holding this 
timely and very important hearing.
    As we have discussed, Congress provided nearly $50 billion 
in December, and in the American Rescue Plan, to help residents 
stay safely housed, and to be able to afford their rent.
    This was necessary relief, 100-percent essential, not just 
for the health and safety of these residents during a pandemic, 
but because a mass eviction crisis would have inflicted 
needless damage to our economy and to our families.
    Last week, New York Governor Hochul signed into law 
additional protections for New York residents, and included new 
resources for landlords and tenants to access rental 
assistance. New York law also extended the State eviction 
moratorium until January 15th.
    It is no secret that the rollout of the rental assistance 
programs hasn't gone as smoothly as Congress would have wanted, 
which is why I am so glad we have a great panel, to hear about 
your experiences and ways we can further improve and streamline 
the program to better serve renters and landlords alike.
    One of the issues I have been hearing about from my 
constituents is the dual nature of the application. In effect, 
you need both the landlord and the tenant to complete the 
application to receive assistance.
    Specifically, I have heard from constituents that many have 
tried seeking assistance, but that their landlords were not 
willing to apply. And I know the reverse has also been true.
    So I would like to ask Mr. Morris, we will start with you, 
you are on the front lines helping tenants with this program. 
Is this an issue you are seeing in Philadelphia with the 
tenants you are assisting?
    Mr. Morris. Thank you for that question. It has presented 
as an issue. There are two portions of the application: the 
landlord application; and the tenant application. If the 
landlord applies on behalf of a tenant, it generates an 
affidavit that the tenant has to sign.
    I do believe that creating the additional flexibility where 
the landlord would not need to go to the tenant to get the 
affidavit signed and then submit it will allow that landlord to 
get a direct payment themselves once they have made the 
necessary efforts to inform their tenants that the program 
exists and to get them to apply for funding. But it has been an 
issue.
    Mrs. Maloney. Thank you.
    Ms. Yentel, can you add, or can you speak to how this issue 
presents a problem, if it does, for tenants seeking assistance, 
and how the bill introduced by Chairwoman Waters would help 
address this problem?
    Ms. Yentel. Thank you. Requiring a program to have both 
landlord and tenant involvement when getting emergency rental 
assistance provides important safeguards against fraud and 
against tenant harassment, really important safeguards for the 
tenant.
    We have heard of cases where tenants are not able to 
complete their applications, and certainly, there have been 
cases where landlords have been refusing to accept emergency 
rental assistance when the application is approved and the 
money is presented to them.
    So, the solutions on incomplete applications by tenants 
comes back to simplifying applications, using self-attestation 
wherever possible, and requiring that all programs do these 
actions.
    On the landlord side, there is a whole variety of reasons 
why landlords seem to be refusing to participate. A solution to 
many of those challenges is to provide the assistance directly 
to the tenant, so that the tenant can pay the rent, and the 
landlord, if they don't want to be involved in a government 
program, doesn't have to be involved at all.
    Only 28 percent of programs are currently using direct-to-
tenant assistance explicitly, and all should be required to use 
this essential safeguard as would happen under Chairwoman 
Waters' legislation.
    Mrs. Maloney. Thank you. My time has almost expired, so I 
yield back, and I thank you, Chairwoman Waters, for your 
leadership on this important program. We are working very, very 
hard to implement it on the ground across the country. Thank 
you. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman 
from Missouri, Mrs. Wagner, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Wagner. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, but we are not 
working very hard to get this administered. Because you know 
what, the money is not getting out the door to the people who 
need it, after months and months and months and months.
    For far too long, struggling Americans, both renters and 
landlords in Missouri's 2nd Congressional District and beyond, 
have not received the assistance that Congress authorized.
    From what little data--I think the last was in July--that 
Treasury provided us since Congress has approved nearly $50 
billion in rental assistance, only $4.8 billion, or 10 percent, 
of these funds have made it into the hands of those who need it 
most.
    It is clear to the American people that the Biden 
Administration has failed to distribute billions in rental 
assistance.
    Months ago, Republicans introduced legislation to cut 
through the bureaucratic red tape, to streamline this rental 
assistance program to get this money out the door to support 
hardworking Americans.
    However, Democrat leadership completely ignored this good-
faith effort, and I think it is critical that Treasury 
Secretary Yellen take responsibility for the program's failure, 
and appear before this committee as we have requested on 
several occasions, to no avail, so that we can better 
understand what is keeping so many of America's tenants and 
landlords from receiving these funds in a timely manner.
    Instead of working in a bipartisan fashion, and 
incorporating the much-needed provision of Ranking Member 
McHenry's legislation, Democrats have been trying to shove 
through a bill, in the 11th hour, that is full of bureaucratic 
red tape without any input from across the aisle, and are 
needlessly putting families at risk of eviction and pushing 
mom-and-pop landlords out of business.
    We are not helping renters, and we are actively hurting 
landlords.
    Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Winn, COVID hit in March of 2020, which 
was 18 complete rent cycles ago. This means there may be some 
landlords who have not been paid a full month's rent in a year-
and-a-half. What financial impact has COVID had on landlords to 
date, Mr. Winn?
    Mr. Winn. Thank you for that question. Currently, there are 
$37 million in accounts receivable and delinquency rents across 
our portfolio. Despite all of the efforts I testified about 
that we have done, only half of the residents have actually 
received the funding that they are eligible for, and the 
tenant-consent aspect of that, we feel is the largest barrier.
    We have done the communication. We have met with them. We 
have filled out the applications. We have handed them the 
complete applications, and, yet, 15,000 of our residents who 
are eligible have not received the assistance.
    Mrs. Wagner. And yet, we are sitting on over $40 billion, 
much of which was in the CARES Act back in last December that 
is still sitting there in this fund, not distributed. It is 
disgraceful.
    What incentives do you think, Mr. Winn, would make a 
meaningful impact in helping to deliver this emergency rental 
assistance to repay those debts?
    Mr. Winn. Very quickly, it would be informed consent as 
opposed to signatures by the tenant so that landlords can apply 
on their behalf. It would be bulk applications that landlords 
are able to submit and that are mandated to be approved by the 
ERAP administrators rather than just encouraged, a combining of 
the two programs to cut out bureaucracy.
    Mrs. Wagner. Yes.
    Mr. Winn. And I would say, really, the fourth one would be 
to make sure that when a unit is vacated, that that unit is 
still eligible for rental assistance, because that is where a 
lot of the outstanding delinquencies are.
    Mrs. Wagner. Thank you. The December effort, which was a 
bipartisan CARES Act to get the money to eligible households 
quickly and efficiently, was hastily undone with the creation 
of the Democrats' Emergency Rental Assistance 2 Program in 
March. And that, and the Dems' bill, that $1.9 trillion bill, 
was a second parallel program with similar purposes but 
different rules, timelines, and incentives. And most of all, 
what is most egregious, is that it pushed the end date of the 
Biden Administration's mismanaged program out to 2025--2025. We 
need rental assistance now, not in 2025.
    We have to the fix this program's bureaucratic problems and 
come together, Madam Chairwoman. I yield back my time.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentlelady's time has 
expired.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. 
Sherman, who is also the Chair of our Subcommittee on Investor 
Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets, for 5 
minutes. Let's get beyond political talking points. Let's 
legislate.
    Mr. Sherman. Absolutely. I think this is the hearing we 
should have, not a theatrical hearing where we bring in big 
names. And what we need is people who are on the ground who can 
help get this program to work better.
    That being said, this program is not the best example of 
government working together to help people. And those of us who 
want government to help people in need bear the rhetorical 
burden of showing that government can be effective.
    It is an emergency program, and an emergency program is one 
where you are trying to build a plane while you are flying it. 
It is not that easy to put something together in an emergency, 
but we should have done better, and I think with this hearing, 
we will.
    Mr. Schwartz, perhaps briefly you could tell us, what are 
the impediments faced by property owners when trying to utilize 
the Emergency Rental Assistance Program that have led some 
owners to not even participate in the program?
    Mr. Schwartz. Yes. We have talked about one of them, which 
is that owners would like to participate, but the resident 
doesn't want to participate, and so having that ability to 
apply on behalf of the resident is super important.
    Also, what we have seen is strings attached, like 
additional moratoriums that you accept assistance but you are 
subject to a new moratorium. Landlords are very reluctant to 
sign up for more strings attached to accepting the assistance. 
Another one is rent--or debt cancellation, where you receive 
assistance that is below what you are owed and that settles the 
debt.
    We don't want to add barriers, and those are two things 
that are in this bill that we think will make landlords 
reluctant to participate in the program. And the best solution 
to solving this is getting the ERAP dollars in the hands of the 
residents and the landlords.
    Mr. Sherman. I think, also, this crisis will determine 
whether other people get involved in investing and building new 
apartment buildings. And to put people in a position where they 
have to pay the mortgage and they can't collect the rent is not 
going to encourage people to go into this business.
    Ms. Yentel, we have almost half of the renters in this 
country paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent. We 
need to build 328,000 new apartments every year. We are not 
even close to that. The COVID crisis has slowed construction.
    What policies would you suggest to create an environment 
that incentivizes additional housing development and the 
preservation of housing we have now?
    Ms. Yentel. You are absolutely right that the pandemic 
exacerbated a preexisting affordable housing crisis. Many of 
the same renters who struggled to keep up with rent during the 
pandemic, also struggled pre-pandemic, and they will continue 
to struggle post-pandemic, unless and until Congress invests in 
long-term sustained solutions to build a housing social safety 
net in our country.
    And many of the investments that are included in the 
reconciliation bill that Chairwoman Waters released are the 
kind of investments that are needed: a major expansion of 
rental assistance to preserve our country's public housing 
infrastructure; to build more apartments affordable to lowest-
income people through the National Housing Trust Fund; and to 
incentivize or require local governments to reduce or remove, 
eliminate restrictive local zoning that inhibits the supply of 
any kind of apartments and especially affordable apartments and 
drives up costs for everyone.
    Mr. Sherman. Everybody is for more apartments, but not near 
them. It is a problem that local government faces.
    Mr. Schwartz, many owners from large to small have been 
carrying these rental balances that they haven't collected. 
They still have to pay their mortgages, et cetera. What does 
that ultimately mean for the solvency of property owners, their 
ability to continue to be in the rental housing business, and 
should we be concerned about the overall market and systemic 
effects?
    Mr. Schwartz. Yes, we should be concerned. There have been 
no reciprocal moratoriums with property tax bills, or garbage 
collection bills. Those are all due in full. The solution to 
that is the ERAP and getting that in the hands of the 
landlords, because there is financial distress. And we have 
seen that the most with smaller landlords who can't pay their 
bills.
    Chairwoman Waters. Mr. Schwartz, the time has expired.
    The gentleman from Texas--
    Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Waters. --Mr. Sessions, is now recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Sessions. Madam Chairwoman, thank you very much. And 
the opportunity to have our witnesses here today is 
appreciated.
    Mr. Morris, I would like to perhaps engage you first, if I 
could. The legislation, when it passes Congress, is given to an 
Administration who then offers and makes the legislation 
conform to their ability to offer guidance for things to work 
the way the legislation is designed.
    Can you please tell me your working relationship on a local 
basis with the Administration people, whether it be in HUD or 
whether it be in Treasury, about the guidance that you have 
received and what feedback you have given back to them?
    And the reason why I am asking this is because we have no 
one from the Administration who can defend themselves on this, 
so I am interested in your answers about that guidance and what 
you have told them back about making this work better.
    Mr. Morris. At least from the perspective of rental 
assistance here in Philadelphia, there was an existing 
Philadelphia eviction prevention project that had been working 
on these issues from at least 2017.
    So when the pandemic hit, we started engaging both our 
local city council and State legislative leaders and the 
Pennsylvania Housing Finance Authority, who had the first round 
of rental assistance, on making the program more effective, 
eliminating barriers that would basically discourage 
participation.
    So, we have been involved in that process through and 
through. And at least in building out rental assistance, every 
time an issue is brought forward to us by tenants or landlords 
with whom we engage, we provide that feedback to the agency and 
see how we can address that.
    Self-attestation has been a major issue, and we have gotten 
to the place where landlords or landlords' counsel can now 
provide letters to agencies that verify tenancies and show how 
much is owed without additional barriers being put in place. 
So, we have been working in constant communication with our 
local representatives to try and improve the program every step 
of the way.
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Morris, in your locality in Pennsylvania, 
were you given the flexibility to amend what we have heard 
would be the paperwork that we heard in California is not in 
any language but English--were you given that authority and 
responsibility ahead of time to change that, or was that just 
part of the bill that said, only provide this in English for 
the application?
    Mr. Morris. I believe we were given that authority, and we 
also requested additional guidance from the Federal Government 
through Treasury for additional flexibility around how we 
administer the program. So we are in constant communication to 
make those flexibilities happen.
    I believe, just generally, in terms of language access, we 
are required to provide the application in more than English. 
We also work with the Neighborhood Action Council to make sure 
that there is an agency out in the community that can target 
individuals or create another location where someone can go and 
apply and get that assistance.
    Mr. Sessions. Yes, and thank you. And, Mr. Morris, perhaps 
you are providing the feedback today to us, which is why not 
only Mr. McHenry but also Mrs. Wagner are saying that we 
believe that what should have happened today is that we 
actually heard from the program administrators about the 
flexibility that they are providing across the country and 
following the Federal law when they see, for instance, in 
California, where the applications are in English only, as the 
testimony today was given to us.
    And this is disturbing to us, because in the State of 
Texas, and I am sure that what has happened is Ms. Yentel's 
feedback helps us to see who is successful, and there are 
characteristics of success that the Administration would see or 
those administering these programs, and then to know 
specifically what they were doing from receiving feedback after 
they see perhaps those that were more effective than others.
    And, Mr. Morris, I just want you to know that you and Ms. 
Yentel and Mr. Schwartz are providing us information, but we 
are interested in a follow-up on this. I am personally 
interested in what kind of success you are finding with 
feedback from the Treasury Department in making this work, and 
whether they actually are a hindrance or a help, whether they 
are attempting to provide you with the needed feedback that I 
would say would come from the guidance that they would need to 
have and see from across the country.
    So, Madam Chairwoman, I would request that, as Mr. McHenry 
and Mrs. Wagner have suggested, that we need to dig down with 
information about providing the guidance from a national 
perspective of not only the Secretary of the Treasury but their 
feedback about--
    Chairwoman Waters. Mr. Sessions, your time has expired.
    Mr. Sessions. --how we would make this work.
    I thank the gentlewoman, and I will yield back my time.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you.
    The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green, who is also the Chair 
of our Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, is now 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Green. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    Madam Chairwoman, I am very proud to associate myself with 
your legislation. Your legislation does what I have been 
calling for, which is to ensure that the rent is paid. The 
tenants will have the opportunity to access funds, but also, 
the landlords will have an opportunity to access these funds, 
and they can access funds for back rent.
    Some things bear repeating, Madam Chairwoman--Landlords can 
access funds for back rent. I think this is exceedingly 
important for, yes, all landlords, but especially for the mom-
and-pops who have had to bear the burden of maintaining 
property over so many months now.
    So, I proudly associate myself with this program, and I 
would thank you for also looking into how we can inform people. 
A good many of the people I represent are not knowledgeable 
about programs. This program that you are providing now, this 
legislation, would inform people of what is available to them. 
I think this is most beneficial.
    And, finally, the landlords will have an opportunity to not 
only get back rent, but rent for some time out into the future. 
The total sum of months can be up to 24 months. So, this is an 
outstanding program.
    I would like to, if I may, Madam Chairwoman, mention one 
additional thing. There are many people who are still suffering 
as a result of the Community Development Block Grant Disaster 
Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds that have not been properly allocated, 
and Ms. Yentel has some knowledge of what is going on with 
CDBG-DR, because she happens to be associated with some 800 
national State and local organizations calling for codification 
of a program.
    So, Ms. Yentel, I would like to yield time to you to 
explain why there is such broad support for the codification of 
CDBG-DR and to a statute at this time.
    Ms. Yentel. Sure. Thank you, Congressman Green. The CDBG 
Disaster Recovery Grant Program is one of the most essential 
resources that communities receive after disasters, but the 
program is not permanently authorized, which means that every 
time there is a disaster, it needs to be reauthorized 
essentially through the appropriations bills, the supplemental 
bills that provide funding.
    This slows down the process pretty significantly of getting 
resources to communities, and it means that very often, the 
rules for the program get rewritten each time, creating a lot 
of uncertainty to local communities when what they most need is 
certainty and money to start helping people repair and get back 
on their feet after disasters.
    The Reforming Disaster Recovery Act, your legislation, 
would permanently authorize the bill, which would in and of 
itself mean resources would reach communities faster. It would 
also require data sharing across programs, which would help to 
identify gaps in need and ensure that those are being met. And 
it would allow for much greater public participation in 
disaster recovery efforts. Altogether, it could help to lead to 
more equitable and complete disaster housing recovery in 
communities hit by natural disasters.
    Mr. Green. A second question for you--
    Ms. Salazar. Excuse me, Mr. Green? If I may jump in on 
that, Mr. Green. I am so sorry to interrupt you.
    Mr. Green. I will yield to you.
    Ms. Salazar. Thank you so much, Mr. Green. I just needed to 
note that the residents of Oregon are still waiting for 
disaster recovery dollars from last year's historic and tragic 
wildfires. So, I just wanted to lend my support to Ms. Yentel's 
statement.
    Mr. Green. Well, let me extend my sympathies to the people 
that you represent, as well as the people in Texas whom I 
represent. We have a similar circumstance, and I believe Mr. 
Cleaver would attest to a circumstance that he is having to 
negotiate as well.
    But let me just ask this of you, Ms. Salazar, since you are 
now speaking to me. This self-attestation seems to be pretty 
important, and it seems to be something that the chairwoman has 
placed in this legislation. Explain how important this self-
attestation is?
    Ms. Salazar. Thank you so much, Mr. Green. You are 
absolutely right that tenant self-attestation has proven to be 
incredibly helpful to expedite the delivery of rental 
assistance. I will also note that it is a big shift for many 
program administrators who are charged with the important work 
of preventing fraud and running these programs with Federal and 
State and local oversight.
    And so, that is why we are supportive of the safe harbor 
provision in Chairwoman Waters' legislation that would provide 
that assurance to program administrators that self-attestation 
is appropriate, useful, and encouraged in the program.
    Mr. Green. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. As I yield back, on 
a scale of 1 to 10, I would give your program, your legislation 
an 11. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you, Mr. Green.
    The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Posey, is now recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters.
    Mr. Winn, you were talking about your outreach, I guess 
through some church groups and others in your opening 
statement, and you got cut off. If you would like to finish it 
up now, I would be proud to give you the time.
    Mr. Winn. I appreciate that, and I will do that. So, 
despite all of that outreach, these are the statistics. To 
date, WinnCompanies has been able to work with 15,000 
households to apply for $22 million of ERAP support. Of this 
amount, $17 million has been formally approved.
    And I recount all of our efforts not to boast about what we 
did, but to make the point that despite all of these herculean 
efforts that a company of our size can actually perform, we 
still have 15,000 additional households who are eligible for 
ERAP financial support, but who have not yet participated 
because of program inefficiencies. It leads me to conclude that 
smaller landlords, without the possibility of the resources 
that we enjoy, must find themselves in an even more untenable 
and more unfair position. It leads to the conclusion that 
something needs to change.
    Despite our efforts, we, as I mentioned, and our clients 
are still carrying $37 million in delinquent rent. Within that 
universe of households, 2,400 households who are eligible for 
the assistance otherwise are not able to participate because of 
more restrictive income guidelines in certain States.
    On top of this is the 15,000 eligible households that I 
mentioned who are noncommunicative, despite our best efforts, 
and for good reasons and for understandable reasons--
traumatized by medical or financial hardships, language 
barriers, sometimes fearing insurmountable rental 
delinquencies, or technology barriers. Some are confused by 
mixed messaging on eviction moratorium. Some simply just don't 
trust the system. Regardless, the unfortunate result is that 
too many of the very folks that the ERA Program seeks to help 
are those who are not benefiting from the program.
    So, the real-world solutions are the direct tenant 
applications with informed consent to the tenants for 10 days. 
But we also believe there shouldn't be additional restrictions 
placed on that without matching funding. Said differently, if 
there were to be an agreement that if you take these funds, you 
have to stably house residents for 120 more days, we ask for a 
requirement as rather than a suggestion that rental assistance 
funds be made available to match that obligation.
    We also want to make sure that this happens, so it is not a 
major deterrent for landlords across the country to enter into 
what is otherwise a great program. We should mandate the 
allowance of landlords to directly apply for funds and make 
sure that those are processed quickly.
    We want to make sure that the programs are combined and 
that the eligibility is raised to 24 months rather than 18 
months. And we want to make sure that there is an 
implementation mandate for bulk applications by landlords 
rather than just the allowance of it, because we have seen 
across the States we work in that many of the ERAP 
administrators will not allow bulk applications even though it 
is permitted by the legislation.
    I just want to end by saying that I believe that the work 
of this committee has been excellent. I believe these 
amendments are required. I don't believe this is a political 
issue. I believe this is a practical issue. And if we can reach 
more people, we are all better for it.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you.
    Mr. Morris. Mr. Posey--I 'm sorry, Mr. Posey, if I may just 
add to that really briefly. While I support all of the proposed 
changes that Mr. Winn has just highlighted, I think it is 
critical that tenants are informed, as the bill proposes to do, 
that something has been done on their behalf so that they can 
govern themselves accordingly and that the landlord-tenant 
relationship can be preserved on a forward-going basis.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Posey. Do any other witness want to weigh in on this?
    I have just wondered from the beginning, and I even 
mentioned it at the last hearing, why we wouldn't turn to the 
Department of Housing and Urban Development, that has a network 
in place already to deliver assistance.
    I wonder why we would create a new program in the Treasury 
to distribute rental assistance through a network of guarantees 
that are yet to be put in place. If we were going to start 
giving out free petroleum, I think the place to start would be 
through existing gas stations.
    And I see my time has expired. I yield back. Thank you, 
Madam Chairwoman.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
    The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Cleaver, who is also the 
Chair of our Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development, 
and Insurance, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Cleaver. First of all, thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for 
introducing this legislation that is so desperately needed.
    And, Mr. Morris, in your statement, there is a part in 
there that I think everybody should make sure that they focus 
on, where you say something like, all around the country 
tenants and landlords are experiencing widespread delays in 
processing the rental assistance application. And you go on and 
you talk about the number of people in Philadelphia whose 
applications have not been processed and so forth. Do you 
remember that statement?
    Mr. Morris. Yes.
    Mr. Cleaver. Okay. The reason I want to focus on that is I 
think what you are suggesting, and very strongly, I think, and 
it fits in with what we are doing here, that we have to reduce 
the delays, all of the barriers. And one of them, I think that 
my experience is that the cities are trying to get the money 
out the door, but you have to make sure that the grantees and 
their partners are able to complete the application process, 
and sometimes that is a challenge.
    I think, and you may or may not agree, that anything that 
we can do to help get the money out the door, including, in 
some instances, for example, maybe getting the Hispanic 
Chamber, the Black Chamber, and the Asian Chamber all working 
to help interpret the application process for people.
    Here in Kansas City, we have run into people who say, ``I 
don't know what''--``I didn't understand that. I don't know how 
to do this.'' Or in one case, one of my staffers and I had a 
huge meeting, and somebody said, ``I didn't apply because I 
didn't know I was supposed to apply, or I thought somebody else 
would apply.''
    Shouldn't we do everything possible to make sure that--I 
think you are at 55,000 more. I don't know the exact number of 
unprocessed applications. Do you think that there are some 
things that we should include in this legislation, that I think 
are absolutely a necessity if we are going to get this program 
running at the optimum level? What do you think, sir?
    Mr. Morris. There are a few things that I would say. At 
least in the context of Philadelphia, we have already spent 85 
percent of our ERAP funding over several allocations. So, there 
is the need for more money to flow into the City to address 
those applications that are still yet to be processed, and that 
is a significant financial constraint that the program is going 
to face.
    In addition to that, making the program more flexible 
through self-attestation, which we have already talked about. I 
believe the first version of rental assistance required income 
to be verified through the Department of Labor on a Federal 
level, which created significant delays, so a lot of that money 
was not spent in a meaningful way, so to the extent that we can 
eliminate those barriers and that additional paperwork and 
create additional sites and points for people to interact with 
the program.
    Outreach is going to be very critical in this process, and 
the best way to reach people is in their communities, and that 
might require that programs invest in having someone go out to 
apartment complexes and inform them that there is a process 
available to you to apply. It might involve putting mailers--
digital mailers in everyone's inbox, because most landlords use 
portals to communicate with their tenants at this point in 
time.
    So, there is a lot that can be done in terms of outreach, 
and there should be a kind of a no-wrong-door policy. If 
someone shows up to apply, they should be assisted. And 
documents are harder to get at this point in time, because a 
lot of the Federal agencies--the Department of Health and Human 
Services, Social Security, all of those agencies are now 
remote. So getting paperwork is a significant barrier to 
tenants, which leads to delays on the side for landlords.
    So, to the extent that we can eliminate any red tape and 
make it easier for both parties to apply and no one gets turned 
away and any lapse of information is not necessarily held 
against the tenant or a landlord, that is the best way to go 
forward, and make the program easier to use and not harder.
    Mr. Cleaver. Thank you very much. Very quickly, it is in 
the language of our legislation--not this legislation but the 
overall legislation--that municipalities can eliminate some of 
the normal requirements in order to get this out quickly.
    Many cities, including my own, I think--you can't expect 
the head of a department to do something and later be 
criticized for it--end up saying, okay, we need a 60-day period 
for a response to an RFP or something.
    There has to be a way that we get the word to all of the 
municipalities. Maybe the mayors could be the ones who actually 
sign for the participation of this program so they can 
understand that the regular processes are relaxed in order to 
get the money out quickly. Is that--
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you so very much. Thank you, Mr. 
Cleaver. Your time has expired.
    Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. You get a 13 from 
my perspective. Mr. Green didn't go high enough. It is a 13.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you so very much.
    Mr. Huizenga, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Huizenga. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    And I appreciate my friend, Mr. Cleaver, getting into some 
substance of these bills. And I do want to commend the Chair 
for attempting to deal with some issues that we have some 
mutual concerns about, and I want to start off with what I 
think are some unified views of some of the problems.
    We all agree that in 2020, when Congress appropriated this 
money for the ERA 1, it was to eliminate rental arrears 
accumulated by COVID-impacted low-income households. And then 
there is, of course, the additional $21.55 billion in ERA 2 in 
March of 2021.
    I think we actually all pretty much agree as well that 
there was a failure to get money out the door that not only put 
renters at risk of eviction, but it also hurt mom-and-pop 
landlords, who are more likely to own and operate affordable 
rental units.
    The other thing I think that is pretty unifying is that 
Treasury--we all understand Treasury has failed to responsibly 
administer more than $46 billion of Congress-appointed funds 
and to eliminate these arrears. That is why we are sort of in 
this spot.
    Here is where maybe we diverge and we don't agree as much. 
Many of us view that the changes made in this program by the 
Biden Administration actually may have punished landlords and, 
frankly, scared many of them out of the program. Many of us 
also believe that Secretary Yellen has failed to take 
responsibility for the program's failures and shortcomings, 
disregarding requests to have opportunities to have these 
questions addressed to her by this committee and by others and 
by allowing her to bypass the statutory obligations to testify.
    And, frankly, many of us believe that, instead of fixing 
the program, the proposed changes would create even more 
bureaucracy, add new burdens, and will scare off more 
landlords, steer funds away from COVID-impacted low-income 
households, and remove protections to combat fraud.
    Now, I understand that there is a real need that we all 
have to deal with this, and I will take the Chair's request to 
say that we need to legislate. I will note that I can see if 
the Trump Administration had so badly bungled this program, 
there would be a natural desire of my friends on the other side 
to hold them accountable, and that is what we are here trying 
to do with the Biden Administration.
    So, let's talk a little bit about the bills themselves. 
And, again, I commend the Chair for addressing specifically the 
ability of landlords to go and get some remuneration when their 
tenants won't sign off. Now, here is the key: Some 
remuneration. And in my view, I believe this has been a legal 
taking. The takings clause, the takings concept is, you forced 
me to do something that legally I didn't have to do, but you 
forced me to do it, so therefore, you need to owe me and you 
owe me the obligation of what I legally own.
    In the Chair's particular bill, it requires landlords who 
submit applications without a signature of a tenant to accept 
any amount awarded to them as satisfaction of the entirety of 
the back rent that is owed back to March 2020.
    It requires landlords who accept assistance, including 
arrearages, without renter consent to agree to an individual 4-
month eviction moratorium for that tenant beginning upon the 
date the assistance is received, so an additional 4 months.
    It binds landlords who do not accept assistance without 
renter consent to comply with, ``any conditions,'' imposed by 
the Secretary to ensure that renters, ``remain stably housed,'' 
with no end date for such conditions. It requires grantees to 
prioritize applications of tenants over those of landlords 
submitting with no-signature applications.
    It requires landlords who receive assistance to, ``set 
aside and vacate any past eviction order from an assisted 
tenant,'' and to, ``agree to seal any eviction filing, meaning 
it never happened.'' We can't acknowledge that.
    It removes accountability in protections that exist to 
combat fraud. It prohibits grantees from requiring applicants 
to submit proof of a written lease. It removes the tenant 
income verification by a landlord. We could go on and on. And, 
again, while I commend the other side for realizing we have an 
issue, it seems to me these handcuffs really are not going to 
get to that final goal and objective.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. Mr. Huizenga, your time has 
expired. Thank you so very much.
    The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Foster, is now recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Foster. Am I audible and visible here?
    Chairwoman Waters. Mr. Foster, we can hear you.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you.
    Mr. Morris, I was glad to learn that Philadelphia is 
proudly one of the cities that has legislated a right to 
counsel for tenants facing evictions. This is obviously 
monumental in a city where over 90 percent of tenants facing 
evictions were legally unrepresented, compared to 81 percent of 
landlords who typically have attorneys.
    So, although the pandemic has cast an unforeseeable and 
incomparable skew on the success of such a program, I imagine 
that ensuring legal representation for tenants facing evictions 
would greatly reduce the level of unjust evictions or evictions 
in general.
    So, Mr. Morris, can you speak about the extreme importance 
of having legal representation in eviction cases? And more 
broadly, could you explain why organizations like Community 
Legal Services, Inc., or the Legal Services Corporation 
nationally, are vital to protecting marginalized people, 
especially during times like this?
    Mr. Morris. Thank you for that question, and I would be 
happy to. I think it is critical, especially now in the context 
of the COVID-19 pandemic, that tenants be informed of their 
rights and protections that exist in any sort of eviction case.
    Evictions have long-term consequences for tenants beyond 
just being displaced. If you displace a family, you displace a 
child out of school, you potentially displace an adult out of 
work, and you can pack a family in poverty for generations to 
come, because the cost of a forced move is both what you owe to 
the landlord that is evicting you, the cost of relocation and 
the cost of finding new housing, and any collateral 
consequences that come from being displaced in that period.
    To the extent that a tenant can be informed and given the 
ability to self-advocate just as a bare minimum, to know that 
you have rights as it relates to funds that have been received 
on your behalf, your landlord has been paid and made whole and 
you are allowed to stay, that is critical information that 
tenants otherwise often don't know unless they are connected 
with legal services or other representation.
    Sometimes, there are city protections or ordinances that 
come into play that require landlords to meet certain standards 
of housing, just like minimum housing standards that tenants 
have to live in and then pay rent. If those standards are not 
being met, then the landlords should not be able to use the 
court to both collect rent and evict a tenant out of those 
types of housing units.
    And with the affordable housing crisis that is going on in 
the United States, it is critical now more than ever that 
tenants are equally as informed or have access to 
representation, because a courtroom is a traumatic place. You 
enter a courtroom where you know that you owe someone a debt. 
Your perspective is, I don't have the ability to pay this 
money, but I also have nowhere to go with me, my children, and 
everyone else in my household on a normal day, and then you add 
the pandemic to that and that is significantly more of a 
pressing issue.
    And as has been shown, and as I put in my testimony, the 
majority of people facing evictions in the City of Philadelphia 
are single parents, most predominantly Black and Brown females 
who are already living in poverty, and the poverty is 
exacerbated by the loss of income. They are more likely to work 
in industries where there is sporadic unemployment or these 
industries have been directly impacted by the pandemic. They 
are forced to be frontline workers or workers who are at a 
greater risk just by health morbidities for getting COVID-19 
and taking that into their household where they may have 
vulnerable family members.
    So the goal is always to empower tenants to be able to make 
decisions, and to the extent that we can balance the playing 
field and create greater flexibility for those tenants, that is 
always the goal. No one knows more than an individual who is--
    Mr. Foster. Yes, excuse me. So, you would consider that 
adequate funding for Legal Services Corporation for the 
explicit purpose of assisting tenants during this sort of 
situation is really an essential element for ensuring fair 
housing infrastructure?
    Mr. Morris. It is essential, and it is highly critical for 
the continued success of the rental assistance program, because 
someone has to be there to assist tenants in holding landlords 
accountable, not from the perspective of making sure that 
landlords can't use the court system, but making sure that they 
comply with any requirements that have been put in place that 
protect tenants and allow them to remain housed in the long-
term.
    Mr. Foster. Yes. And do you think that having an 
expectation of legal representation on both sides of an 
eviction dispute is likely also to be a useful gate in 
preventing fraud, just that you have a lawyer who has his law 
license on the line if he aids and abets fraud? Are we likely 
to get a lot of the fraud concerns addressed that way as well?
    Mr. Morris. I believe you will get a lot of the fraud 
concerns addressed that way, and you will avoid a tenant 
feeling unsure or unsafe about trying to communicate with their 
landlord with the threat of a large balance hanging over their 
head if they have an advocate that can stand with them and 
ensure their legal protection.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much, Mr. Foster. Your 
time has expired.
    The gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Barr, is now recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Barr. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    And I would like to echo the sentiments of Ranking Member 
McHenry and some of my other colleagues that I am troubled that 
Secretary Yellen is not here to testify on this program. The 
Majority invited Secretary Fudge to testify before the 
committee almost 2 months ago, which was somewhat informative 
but gravely insufficient for the gravity of the situation.
    Here we are today with another hearing on the same topic to 
discuss why less than 11 percent of the funds appropriated by 
Congress almost a year ago have been used to support renters 
and landlords, yet the responsible party remains absent from 
our witness lineup.
    Congress directed Treasury to be the primary steward of 
these funds and to operate the program in such a way that it is 
just struggling renters and landlords. Yet, despite her direct 
responsibility for this bungled operation, Secretary Yellen has 
not testified before this committee, and the Majority has not 
even invited her to do so.
    While I am sure our witnesses today will be able to provide 
some helpful insight, we do need answers from the ultimate 
decision-maker and the party responsible for this total mess, 
and that is Secretary Yellen.
    Another preliminary comment, and this is maybe a different 
take from my colleagues on both my side of the aisle and on the 
other side of the aisle, yes, we need to expedite the emergency 
assistance. That is why Congress passed it. But I hear a lot of 
talk in today's hearing about landlords, about tenants, and 
they have very important interests. But there is someone that 
nobody has been talking about here in this hearing, and that is 
the hardworking taxpayer and the taxpayers' sons and daughters 
and granddaughters and grandsons who are incurring mountains of 
debt with this exploding welfare state.
    And I think what we are really talking about and hearing 
about today is not just the incompetence of the Biden 
Administration itself, but this program proves that big 
government welfare programs are ineffective and they are a 
recipe for waste, fraud, and abuse. The breathtaking 
incompetence that we see here and the waste and the delays and 
the open invitation for fraud is a direct indictment of 
expansion of the Federal welfare bureaucracy.
    Now, I want to ask Mr. Winn a question here. Feedback we 
have heard from landlords across the country, including small 
landlords who own only a handful of properties, suggests that 
the ERA programs are difficult to access because of 
bureaucratic red tape and preconditions that disincentivize 
participation.
    Mr. Winn, how can we improve the ERA programs to make them 
more accessible for small landlords? How might the changes 
under the Majority's bill, which actually adds reds tape for 
landlords, affect participation in the program?
    Mr. Winn. I believe that, as always, there is some solution 
in the middle. And I believe that the changes in the Majority 
bill by and large can help as long as we are not also adding 
restrictions. What I mean by that is, the bulk application 
processes where a landlord can say, a small landlord can say, 
all of my eight tenants can apply for assistance, I can submit 
as a landlord directly self-attestation about things like 
income. That will greatly cut down on the red tape.
    Mr. Barr. Yes, I hear you, and I am sympathetic to bulk 
applications and landlord applications. But, again, I am going 
to return--and I want to expedite these funds. And you haven't 
heard this today from any Members on either side of the aisle, 
but I am concerned about the taxpayer. This self-attestation 
idea concerns me a lot.
    The taxpayer is--we are talking about nearly $50 billion, 
and we are going to just allow landlords and tenants to just 
self-attest without any documentation of income or job? We have 
10.5 million unfilled job openings in America, and the reason 
is that we are paying people to not work.
    We can't just continue to ask the taxpayers to subsidize 
people to live on the taxpayers' dime. Why can't we have just 
simple documentation, allow landlords to apply for tenants, 
have sole protections for taxpayers who are getting fleeced?
    Mr. Winn. I would say, one of the aspects of the original 
bill is also audits that are allowed at the State or 
administrative level. So to your point of fraud, I think that 
if people are committing fraud, those audits hopefully will 
catch that.
    Mr. Barr. Let me just say, in conclusion, that the solution 
to the Biden Administration's incompetence is not to dishonor 
taxpayers by making waste, fraud, and abuse in this program 
even easier. Taxpayers need to have confidence that the renters 
who can afford rent are not just taking advantage of this 
program, reducing funds available for those who actually are 
eligible and who actually are experiencing housing instability. 
And I think some of these reforms in the chairwoman's bill make 
fraud not just likely but guaranteed.
    And, with that, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Paying these 
landlords is not waste, it is not fraud, and it is not abuse.
    I will now call on Mr. Casten, the gentleman from Illinois, 
who is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Casten. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    And thank you to our witnesses. I have learned a ton 
through this hearing, and I appreciate you all taking the time 
to do this.
    Some of my questions are COVID-specific, and some of them 
are about sort of the broader sort of landlord-tenant issues 
that are going on. And, Mr. Winn, I would like to start with 
you, if I could. If I have heard you right, you said you have 
$37 million in accounts receivable delinquency in your books?
    Mr. Winn. [Nonverbal response.]
    Mr. Casten. I see you nodding, okay. I will take that as a 
yes. Help me understand, how much did that increase during 
COVID? How much were you carrying 18 months ago compared to the 
$37 million now?
    Mr. Winn. That is a good question. It has fluctuated. The 
$37 million that goes across our entire portfolio, including 
our clients, has fluctuated. It is definitely higher post-COVID 
than it was pre-COVID. We have seen statistically about a 5-
percent drop in rental receipts because of COVID, and on a 
portfolio of 100,000 apartments, that can add up pretty 
quickly.
    One of the interesting things to note is that the average 
balance of a tenant in our portfolio is $1,400 of delinquency, 
which is interesting because it is a fairly low number, but 
that is also because of the affordable nature of our portfolio. 
I would imagine if someone's portfolio was skewed to the 
market, that probably doubles to about $3,000.
    Mr. Casten. I seem to be frozen. Can you all hear me still?
    Chairwoman Waters. We can hear you now.
    Mr. Casten. Can you all still hear me?
    Chairwoman Waters. Mr. Casten, you are on.
    Mr. Casten. Sorry. We were frozen there for a second.
    Can you estimate--are we talking about a 5-percent 
increase? A 10-percent increase? How much has it gone up during 
COVID, just a quick answer, if you could?
    Mr. Schwartz. Yes. And I can answer too from our 
portfolio's experience, but one thing I would say is our 
delinquency is about 3 times as high during COVID as it was 
before.
    Mr. Casten. Okay. Since you picked up, Mr. Schwartz, and I 
apologize for my IT issues here, how much of that are you 
carrying on your books? When you borrow, you have this asset on 
your books for whatever that receivable is. How much is either 
your bank or your auditor--how much are they typically writing 
that down? Are you carrying 80 cents on the dollar, 50 cents on 
the dollar? How much are they writing off?
    Mr. Schwartz. We have the job, our accounting department, 
of how much do we write off. We are being optimistic that we 
won't have to write much of it off because of emergency rental 
assistance, and so we are reluctant to write off that right 
now. But if we don't get the assistance, we will have to write 
that off.
    Mr. Casten. Okay. Ms. Yentel, then, speaking broadly, 
beyond COVID, particularly for low- and moderate-income 
tenants, let's say they get behind, they miss a payment, they 
have lost their job and then they get it back, how often are 
they able to become current, and how often are those tenants 
just sort of carrying that debt sort of in perpetuity even 
though they are staying current on their rent?
    Ms. Yentel. Right. It is a really good, important question, 
because many of the tenants who are behind on rent are very low 
or extremely low income. They worked before the pandemic, 
during the pandemic, and will be working after the pandemic. 
They are many of the frontline workers who initially lost their 
jobs or lost hours of work. They lost wages. They fell behind 
on rent.
    Even as they are employed now, it is difficult even pre-
pandemic. Many of them work at the lowest-wage jobs. They are 
not able to make rent. They are certainly not able to pay back 
arrears that are owed without assistance.
    Many tenants during the pandemic made a lot of really 
difficult tradeoffs. They borrowed money. They paid rent on 
their credit cards. They stopped buying store-bought food, 
which is why we saw such an increase in food pantries.
    Mr. Casten. I am sorry to interrupt, but I want to get just 
two more questions in.
    Either Ms. Yentel or Mr. Morris, just quickly, can you 
comment on what impact does that have on their credit score? If 
they are carrying this rent that they can't pay even though 
they are staying current going forward, is that a permanent hit 
on their credit score when they first prepay utilities, and 
what does that mean practically?
    Ms. Yentel. Yes. Yes, there are all kinds of harmful 
impacts that come both from carrying debt and having poor 
credit scores. It makes it more difficult for them to get loans 
that they might need in the future. They use credit cards again 
to pay for things that they don't have the cash for. And 
evictions as well are--a single eviction filing on a tenant's 
record stays with them for years and harms their ability to get 
affordable housing in the future.
    Mr. Casten. I am out of time, but as you can just tell, and 
I would welcome all of you to follow up, I am trying to make 
this connection, and I don't know what this is, but for all of 
you on both sides of this, if the landlords are carrying bad 
debt that is affecting their ability to get credit, and the 
tenants are carrying credit scores that are affecting their 
ability to get credit, how do we bridge that gap from a policy 
perspective?
    Thank you very much. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
    The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Williams, is now recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Williams of Texas. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    I want to thank all of you for coming here today and 
answering all of these questions. And I can tell you that every 
landlord I talk to about this pot of money has been frustrated 
with how slowly it has been getting to people in need. As much 
as we need to ensure that renters are taken care of, we cannot 
forget the landlords. They have financial obligations to handle 
as well. This money could be a lifeline, but so far it has 
failed to live up to what it was supposed to do.
    So, Mr. Schwartz, could you talk--and you have done so well 
today--about some of the hardships that your member companies 
faced as a result of this eviction moratorium?
    Mr. Schwartz. Sure. And one thing I would just point out is 
that Texas is a model State for distributing--
    Mr. Williams of Texas. Yes, I am going to talk about that 
here shortly.
    Mr. Schwartz. Okay. Good. Yes, the moratorium has created a 
lot of problems in our industry. One problem I would point out 
is it is a contributor to rent inflation. Someone suggested 
there could be 1 million units out in the country that are non-
rent paying. That has been taken out of the supply when demand 
is surging. Economics 101 says you are going to get big price 
increases, and that is an unintended consequence of the 
moratoriums.
    They have caused landlords to have an inability to pay all 
of their bills or to have to cut back on maintenance and 
keeping up their properties. It has been a very challenging 
environment, when you have residents who haven't paid in 18 
months.
    And there is some confusion with moratoriums. The 
residents, in some cases, think it is a rent holiday, and so 
they choose to spend their money elsewhere rather than pay 
their rent.
    And so this bill, we think, is important if the effect of 
the bill is emergency rental assistance in the hands of people 
who have arrearages and want to stay in the community so they 
can continue to pay rent. But the moratoriums ultimately causes 
housing instability and creates massive debt on behalf of the 
residents and problems with the landlord.
    Mr. Williams of Texas. Okay. Thank you. I am also concerned 
that all of the government interference into mom-and-pop 
landlords during the pandemic will lead to a greater 
consolidation within the industry. Most landlords that I talk 
to are not massive corporations, and do not have access to huge 
lines of credit when things get tough, but only have a few 
apartment units they are able to maintain and rent out to the 
public. So when these people stop receiving rent payments, and 
with the Federal assistance stuck in bureaucratic limbo, many 
will not have any other option but to sell their properties.
    Mr. Winn, how will the speed of these funds getting out the 
door help prevent industry consolidation and ensure that mom-
and-pop landlords can once again thrive with their property?
    Mr. Winn. I think it is a great point and a real concern. 
And nobody wants to see ma-and-pa landlords go under because of 
bureaucracy or because of process. So I really do think, as you 
have said, the answer is in your question, which is the sooner 
we can get the money to those who need it, the better. And I 
think the bills that are being discussed do a good job of that. 
But they do not do a perfect job of that.
    And one of the things that we need to figure out is how to 
incent those small landlords to actually use this program, not 
to layer on restrictions that are burdensome to them, such as 
making sure that they would forgive rents or partially forgive 
rent that isn't covered by the rental assistance funding. I 
think that would disincent small landlords, and that might have 
the effect that you are discussing.
    Mr. Williams of Texas. Thank you.
    I have limited time here. Mr. Schwartz, I will keep this 
one simple. What is my great State of Texas doing right that 
other States around the country should mimic and copy?
    Mr. Schwartz. I have this information from my team on the 
ground in Texas. You are using a software called Neighborly 
Software, which is a best in class, and so I would advise the 
committee to follow some best-in-class best practices. It is a 
user-friendly platform. It can bulk load applications, so 
landlords who have a large number of units can bulk load it. It 
has great technical support, and you can actually get someone 
on the phone there pretty much anytime, so they have been great 
to work with. And it has real-time tracking of the status of 
the payment, so you can see what has been paid and what hasn't 
real-time.
    Mr. Williams of Texas. Thank you, and God bless Texas. And 
I yield back, Madam Chairwoman.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
    The gentlewoman from Iowa, Mrs. Axne, is now recognized for 
5 minutes.
    Mrs. Axne. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And thank you to 
our witnesses for being here.
    I want to start with a little bit of background for our 
witnesses. We have a couple of main rental assistance programs 
here in Iowa, and there is a local program that has been doing 
a really good job. It has Polk County and the City of Des 
Moines working together on it, and they have actually allocated 
all of the funds from the first round. But, at the same time, 
Iowa's State program has not done very well with getting out 
this aid, and as a matter of fact, has used less than 6 percent 
of the money.
    I see a lot of this coming down to just the choices that 
are being made as to how the program is being limited, 
including things like the State did, which was refusing to 
allow tenants to apply for 3 months of forward rent that is 
clearly allowed under the rules.
    So, Ms. Yentel or Mr. Morris, can you share a little bit of 
what you have seen that really separates the programs that have 
done better with this from the ones that haven't?
    Ms. Yentel. Sure, I would be glad to. Thanks for the 
question. And I couldn't agree with you more that the fact that 
some programs are doing so well in sending ERA quickly and 
getting the money to the tenants who need it most is proof that 
it is possible to do it, and we should look to those programs 
to learn what is working there and implement it across other 
programs as well.
    And what successful programs are doing is having simple, 
accessible applications. They are using self-attestation for 
eligibility wherever possible. They are hiring the number of 
staff that they need to handle the deluge of applications that 
they are receiving. They are using direct-to-tenant assistance 
when landlords refuse to participate. They are doing robust and 
equitable outreach to make sure that tenants and landlords know 
these resources are available and how to access them.
    And programs like the example of Texas is a good one. Some 
programs are course correcting. They are recognizing that they 
got off to a bad start, or something is not working well, and 
they are improving their programs as they go. Those are the 
signs of successful programs in ERA.
    Mrs. Axne. Well, I very much appreciate that.
    Mr. Morris, let me ask you then, if we have a State 
Government that isn't inclined to get the aid out to the 
renters who need it, do you think that the changes that we are 
talking about here today are going to be sufficient to help get 
the funding into those people's hands, or do you think both 
renters and landlords in Iowa would be better served by a group 
that is willing to really help them?
    Mr. Morris. I can't speak directly to the existence of a 
government that is not willing to help tenants and landlords 
who are struggling in this process. But I do think what bears 
saying is that all of these States have existing networks to 
help vulnerable households, and there is no reason why we 
should be reinventing the wheel and not using those networks. 
As you mentioned, they are systems that are set up to help 
vulnerable populations access resources and they should be the 
ones that State Governments consult at the frontline to set up 
programs.
    And there should not be an opportunity for States to create 
additional barriers or different rules for programs that make 
it harder for renters and landlords to participate. If a 
Federal law says something is allowable, it should be allowed. 
The legislation should probably say 3 months of forward rent, 
``should be paid,'' not, ``can be paid.'' Just any additional 
flexibility to make renters and landlords access funds is 
welcome.
    Mrs. Axne. Absolutely. I appreciate that.
    Mr. Winn. I just want to say--
    Mrs. Axne. What is that?
    Mr. Winn. I totally agree with what Kadeem just said. I 
think that was a great point that we have encountered as well.
    Mrs. Axne. I appreciate that.
    Let me shift a little bit here to ERA 2. Iowa has already 
said that they are not intending to apply for the funds, 
despite the fact that we continue to see renters evicted and 
landlords without unpaid rent, as, of course, I have mentioned, 
only about 6 percent of the funding has gone out.
    Both landlords and tenants lose when this rental assistance 
is not delivered.
    Mr. Schwartz, I am wondering, with the second round being 
available to help both renters and landlords for an additional 
3 years, what are your thoughts on how it is going to affect 
landlords by turning this down?
    Mr. Schwartz. The reason landlords are turning that down is 
that it doesn't prioritize arrearages, and we think that is an 
important fix in this bill, and the McHenry bill takes a look 
at that.
    Arrearages are so important because the resident would like 
that arrearage cleaned up. Even if they are not living there 
anymore, they still hold that debt, and the landlord is still 
pursuing collection. It could impact that resident's credit, 
and the landlord still has their bills to pay and needs that 
money to keep going. So we think that is really important, and 
we hope that the committee can fix that. It is an important 
fix.
    Mrs. Axne. Thank you. My time has expired.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
    The gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Hill, is now recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Hill. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I appreciate you and 
Ranking Member McHenry, even though you are not quite on the 
same page--this issue is important, and it has just dragged on 
for too long, which is why I was proud to support Mr. McHenry's 
bill to advance this funding, simplify it, and get it out. 
Because that is the main issue here, that we help the people 
who are in arrears on their rent.
    That is what Congress wanted to do last December. If you 
are in arrears due to losing your job, or a terrible impact 
from COVID-19, that is what we are trying to do with these 
bills.
    All of this other stuff, forward rent or whatever, is not 
the core mission. The core mission is to help those families, 
starting last April, who were brutalized in the economic 
collapse of shutting this economy down, and haven't gotten back 
on their feet.
    And so it is frustrating, not only to tenants and 
landlords, but it is frustrating to Members of Congress that 
here we are, in September, and we are still talking about how 
this could be a better program and help the people that we 
intended to help last December.
    I heard some discussion that was very interesting to me, 
and I would like to try to get a little bit of data. I know it 
will be anecdotal, I know it will be dealing with Mr. Schwartz 
and Mr. Winn's testimony. But you have raised something that, 
in meeting with my mom-and-pop landlords here in Arkansas, I 
have certainly picked up on, which is, someone is impacted by 
COVID-19 and is in arrears--April, May, June, July, last year--
they haven't gotten the benefit of this rental assistance, and 
they moved, they left.
    And, so, both of you referenced an interesting concept, 
which is, of the rent in arrears that you have talked about, 
and Mr. Winn cited $37 million, how much of that is in a unit 
that is connected to a tenant who left months ago? Mr. Winn?
    Mr. Winn. A significant portion, and I don't have the exact 
number in front of me, but it is very significant. In fact, you 
can make a connection between the uncommunicative residents, 
the ones that we have not been able to reach, with the ones who 
are more likely to leave, because they don't believe that the 
system will help them, or they don't believe that the program 
is for them, but they do know that their balances are 
accumulating.
    So I do think that there is that connection, and that there 
is significant nationwide back rent owed for vacated apartments 
for folks who don't believe they have a way out.
    Mr. Hill. Yes, and that makes this even more complicated.
    Mr. Schwartz, let me hear you on that issue, if I could, 
please?
    Mr. Schwartz. Yes. I don't have the exact number. Our total 
30 days or greater past due is $8.5 million in our portfolio. I 
don't know what percent of that is past due for someone who 
doesn't live there. I would say, I don't think it is 
significant. I think it is 10 to 20 percent, and that is a 
guess, but it is a meaningful amount.
    Mr. Hill. But I think it is a key point here, that there is 
no tenant to fill out paperwork. The tenants walked out on the 
lease and left. And so, that is a whole other complex and we 
are not, per se, suggesting they be gone after, but we suggest 
that we be able to process that money and get that vacant unit 
paid off, and make that less of a problem here.
    So, I hope that we will put some priority on that as we 
talk through these issues. I thought that one was an important 
one to highlight today, Madam Chairwoman.
    Also, Mr. Winn, you have talked about--you described some 
of the speeding provisions, like bulk applications, and 
informed consent, that are in Madam Chairwoman's bill were 
helpful, but that they are not as helpful because then we 
extend this eviction moratorium.
    So, you are arguing, Mr. Winn--and I will get you to 
respond too, Mr. Schwartz--that these are useful items to help 
speed up the McHenry effort of getting this money out, but it 
is a contradiction to extend that eviction moratorium. Is that 
your view, Mr. Winn?
    Mr. Winn. I would say, yes, I think there should be a 
middle ground. I believe as you mentioned, there are provisions 
in the bill that are both necessary and will be very effective. 
I do think they are burdened by more restrictions that will 
have the unintended consequences of having landlords not wish 
to participate--
    Mr. Hill. Okay. Mr. Schwartz, can you give a quick 
response?
    Mr. Schwartz. Yes. There are two things in the bill that 
could cause landlords not to participate. The first one is an 
120-day eviction moratorium if you accept the ERAP funds, and 
the second is the cancellation of debt if you accept ERAP 
funds, even in the ERAP funds don't pay all of the debt. We 
think that will impact landlord participation.
    Mr. Hill. I really appreciate those candid short responses.
    Madam Chairwoman, thanks, and I yield back to you.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman 
from Massachusetts, Ms. Pressley, is now recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I know firsthand 
the fear and the trauma that comes with an eviction notice on 
your door. Evictions are disruptive and violent. These are 
violent events which destabilize families, but make it more 
expensive and challenging to rent safe housing in the future, 
to apply for credit, to borrow money, or to purchase a home.
    Currently, almost a third of Black renters are at risk of 
eviction. This eviction crises is exacerbating economic 
injustice for Black families across America.
    Ms. Yentel, while there is a clear economic-justice case to 
support eviction moratoriums, wasn't the legal justification of 
the CDC eviction moratorium always to help us get COVID-19 
under control?
    Ms. Yentel. Yes, absolutely. The purpose of the CDC Federal 
eviction moratorium was to slow the spread of COVID-19 and 
contain the virus. And research has since shown that expired 
eviction moratoriums led to as many as 400,000 cases of COVID-
19, and as many as 11,000 deaths.
    Ms. Pressley. That's right. So when I say eviction is 
policy violence, that is not just some catchy turn of phrase. 
We know that when 27 States lifted their eviction moratoriums 
during the pandemic, again, it led to some 433,000 preventable 
cases of COVID-19, and 10,700 preventable COVID-19 deaths. This 
policy failure has ended the lives of more than 10,000 
Americans.
    Now, earlier this summer, before its expiration, some 
Democrats, including our chairwoman, Maxine Waters, and I, 
fought hard to implore every option to extend the eviction 
moratorium including passing legislation.
    Now, while we were successful in securing a targeted CDC 
extension for a month, at the time there were not enough 
Members of Congress who were willing to vote yes to help pass 
this commonsense legislation to prevent a public health crisis 
within a public health crisis.
    Somewhere along the line, the conversation about the 
eviction moratorium shifted from it being a reasonable public 
health measure into an argument that Congress was anti-small 
landlord. That is not it.
    This is about saving people's lives. That was a ploy to 
divide and pit working families against working families. Every 
proposal before Congress has provided relief for renters and 
small landlords alike.
    Then, I discovered that the National Association of 
REALTORS was the largest political action committee (PAC) donor 
to candidates in the last election cycle, and suddenly, that 
shift made sense.
    The fight to extend the Federal eviction moratorium has 
been derailed too many times because the single largest PAC 
donor is the organization who was fighting, from Congress to 
the Supreme Court, to ensure that renters are put last, which 
means they are putting the public health last.
    So, let me be clear. Our advocacy is about saving lives. 
Congress has provided $46 billion to get landlords out of debt, 
and now we need to protect renters too. Renters may not have a 
multimillion dollar PAC behind them, but they have a growing 
number of Members of Congress in their corner.
    Ms. Yentel, yesterday, Dr. Fauci said that COVID-19 rates 
are 10 times too high to consider the spread under control. Do 
you think that the Federal housing agencies are doing 
everything in their power to get COVID-19 under control by 
protecting renters from eviction?
    Ms. Yentel. I think they can and should do more, and 
Congress should as well. Clearly, Congress should implement a 
Federal eviction moratorium, as long as the Delta variant is 
surging and people are dying.
    But as you said, Congress doesn't have the votes to do so, 
and so Federal agencies should act. We have urged HUD to 
implement an eviction moratorium for all federally-subsidized 
properties, which we believe they have the legal authority to 
do now, and we have urged the Federal Housing Finance Agency 
(FHFA) to consider what authorities it might have to similarly 
implement an eviction moratorium on federally-backed 
properties. Those two actions could protect about 30 percent of 
renters nationally.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you. And we know there are an estimated 
750,000 renters who could be evicted in the next few months. 
This is an all-hands-on-deck moment. This is a public health 
emergency. I urge every level of government to take urgent 
action to keep people safely housed. And I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentlelady 
yields back.
    Mr. Kustoff is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Kustoff. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you for 
calling the hearing today. And thank you to the witnesses for 
appearing. I think one thing we have heard is that we are all 
frustrated by the lack of funds that have been distributed by 
the Federal Government, and I think many of us have concerns 
that we have not heard from Secretary Yellen about the process 
and that she should be here.
    But with that said, Mr. Winn, can you talk about the 
practical effects, if you will, of the problem of getting in 
touch with past tenants who have already moved out and have 
outstanding payments? Practically, are you able to get their 
consent, and how would you go about doing this?
    Mr. Winn. Yes. As I alluded to earlier, this has been a 
real challenge for us. And I made a point of describing all of 
our outreach efforts, at local levels, State levels, and 
Federal levels, working with churches, and community 
organizations.
    And yet, we still have been unable to reach about half of 
the tenant population, despite having filled out the 
applications, and knocking on doors. As I alluded to, there are 
many reasons that a tenant may not feel comfortable signing 
that document.
    And this is not meant to demonize any tenants. In fact, it 
is meant to recognize that that problem exists, and to make 
sure that landlords can apply with informed consent on behalf 
of those tenants, or else I just simply believe the money will 
not get out there. It will not get to those tenants. Those 
balances will chase those tenants to the next place they live 
on their credit report. It is bad for everybody.
    I don't think we could have done anything more than we have 
done, and I still think that we are only 50 percent successful. 
I worry about the smaller landlords without our resources. They 
would have been less successful.
    Mr. Kustoff. I think you answered this, but I am going to 
ask it in a different way. Prior to the pandemic, prior to 18 
months ago, and I rightly applaud everybody who tried to work 
with people, because there was no playbook, there was no 
historical guide on how to deal and how to navigate through 
this.
    But with the tenants' outstanding balance during the 
pandemic, what would that balance be where, essentially, they 
would pass the point of no return? In other words, they 
couldn't pay back a past balance and have to work on evictions?
    Mr. Winn. I'm sorry. You were breaking up a little. Can you 
say the last part of that question again?
    Mr. Kustoff. Sure. I was talking about, prior to the 
pandemic, what level of back rent would you say was past the 
point of no return, that the tenant would be unable to pay 
back, and you would have to begin eviction proceedings?
    Mr. Winn. Yes. I would say from a statistical point of 
view, generally speaking, we, as a developer and as an owner, 
would underwrite 1 percent to 2 percent of bad debt as an 
allowance. We look at the entire rental. You might have an 
allowance for 1 or 2 percent. That number has increased 
significantly because of COVID. And one of the things that I 
think everybody on this call is worried about is that it is 
mounting. It is not getting smaller. There continue to be folks 
who suffer job losses, and have largely not rebounded because 
the COVID epidemic is still with us.
    Mr. Kustoff. Thank you, Mr. Winn.
    Mr. Schwartz, I think that Mr. Hill was asking you about 
the Expediting Assistance for Renters and Landlords Act, the 4-
month eviction moratorium. Can you talk about, again, the 
practical effects of the proposal in general, what is good, and 
what is bad, following on your testimony?
    Mr. Schwartz. Yes. The best eviction mitigation tool is the 
ERAP funds getting in the hands of the landlords. If you tie 
that to an 120-day eviction moratorium, what is going to happen 
is the landlords have shouldered the burden of this pandemic 
over the past 18 months, and have large rental balances due to 
them. And now that that is gone, at least the Federal 
moratorium, and they are told you have to sign up for a new 
moratorium if you accept the emergency rental assistance, there 
is going to be a lot of reluctance, and I think you are going 
to kind of do the opposite of what the bill is intending to do. 
You are going to contract the number of landlords who want to 
participate in the program by including that in the bill, and 
that is our concern.
    Mr. Kustoff. Thank you, Mr. Schwartz.
    My time has expired. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Mr. Lynch is now recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you very 
much. First of all, thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I 
appreciate all of your efforts to get this money out. We are 
facing some difficulty here, but I do support your solution.
    I actually know Mr. Winn personally. He is a friend of 
mine. I actually worked with his dad back in the day, 
developing a lot of the affordable housing in my district, and 
I want to just say a couple of things about the WinnCompanies 
before I ask my question.
    Number one, when this pandemic first hit, and there was 
great, great anxiety out there, as there is now, the 
WinnCompanies came out right away and they did two things. 
Before Congress could act and before the CDC could act, the 
WinnCompanies came out and they announced to their tenants--
well, first of all, they announced to all of their workers--in 
our district, we have union carpenters, union electricians, 
union plumbers, and union laborers who maintain the housing, 
and they do a great job. And the WinnCompanies came out right 
out of the box when COVID hit, and jobs were shutting down all 
over the place, and people were being asked to hunker down, and 
announced publicly that they would not lay off any of their 
workers and that they would continue to pay them to do the 
plumbing jobs and to maintain the properties.
    So, that lowered the anxiety level among a lot of the 
workers.
    The second thing they did--and, again, this is before the 
CDC moratorium--is they came out and announced to the tenants 
that they would not evict anybody for nonpayment of rent, and 
they have thousands of units.
    And that did wonders for the phone calls that I was getting 
in my office regarding my folks in public housing.
    I know most of the members on the committee realize I grew 
up in public housing, lived there for almost 20 years, myself, 
my mom, my dad, and my five sisters. The local housing project 
that we grew up in is now renamed after my mom, the Anne M. 
Lynch Homes at Old Colony. We are very proud of that, so I am 
all in on public housing. Look, if we didn't have public 
housing, my family and I would have been homeless. I know what 
that fear feels like.
    We had some tough times growing up. My dad used to say that 
we had to save up to be poor. We had real difficulty. And I am 
proud of my dad and my mom for pulling us out of that. They 
both worked really, really hard, and I realize the opportunity 
that public housing gave us.
    So, I am going to ask you, Mr. Winn--look, you and I know 
that we have been trying to develop affordable housing in the 
City of Boston, which is a high-rent location, for years, and 
we have a couple that are coming up that we are making progress 
on, which is good, thanks to Chairwoman Waters. Thanks to 
Chairwoman Waters, we are finally getting back into the 
business of affordable housing. We have been retrenching at the 
Federal level for the past 20 years, and now Maxine, God bless 
her, has pushed a lot of initiatives to help people in public 
housing and to create more of it.
    But what is the biggest obstacle to us? Even when we have 
land available, we are having difficulty developing affordable 
housing and workforce housing that would help the people that 
we work for. What are some of your thoughts on that?
    Mr. Winn. Thank you, Congressman Lynch, and thank you for 
those kind words, and for being such a great advocate for the 
City of Boston and your district. Really, I think what Congress 
can do is to concentrate more resources on public housing.
    The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program has been 
wonderful for creating new low-income housing, but there is 
aged infrastructure in public housing across the country, and 
for years it has been underfunded.
    So, I want to thank the committee, and I want to thank 
Chairwoman Waters and Congressman Lynch and everybody else who 
fights for HUD resources, because people are living in 
substandard conditions, not because of management, but because 
of a lack of funding.
    And so, I think if we could increase the Choice 
Neighborhoods funding, the HOPE VI funding, I think we are 
going to be better off as a community.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you. And Mr. Winn, I just want to say that 
I know that you do a lot of work on military housing--Ft. Hood, 
Camp Lejeune, a lot of our bases. And this is probably not 
appropriate at this hearing, but I would love to sit down and 
talk to you about how we can do a better job of housing our men 
and women in uniform and their families.
    Thank you. I yield back, Madam Chairwoman.
    Chairwoman Waters. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Gonzalez, 
is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Gonzalez of Ohio. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for 
holding this hearing today, and I certainly want to thank 
Ranking Member McHenry for all of his work on this important 
topic. Mr. McHenry has been talking about the importance of 
getting this right for months now, and he should be commended 
for his advocacy on behalf of renters and landlords throughout 
the country.
    The fact of the matter is that this program has been poorly 
designed from the beginning, and we should take next week's 
scheduled markup and include Mr. McHenry's comments and his 
legislation to streamline Federal dollars.
    We have put in a lot of programs since the pandemic has 
started, and I will contrast this one with the Paycheck 
Protection Program (PPP). When you have insatiable need, and a 
well-designed program, the money flows, it gets out quickly, 
and it gets into the economy in the right way.
    That is what happened with the PPP. It wasn't perfect, but 
there was a big need, and the program was designed for speed, 
and it got out.
    When you have a poorly-designed program or a lack of 
demand, you get this outcome, which, in Ohio, is that only 6.8 
percent of our money has actually been distributed. I do 
believe there is demand, but it is blatantly obvious when you 
look at the numbers that this program is poorly designed.
    And I would at least suggest we think about educating 
people, as more than 50 percent of renters and 40 percent of 
landlords are unaware of the Federal assistance. But today, we 
are talking about the trouble that renters and landlords have 
had in accessing Federal assistance, and this is all within the 
backdrop, of course, of the eviction moratorium which was in 
place until just last week.
    Mr. Winn, I want to start with you. Just briefly, what has 
been the financial impact on landlords, and how have we seen 
landlords respond to the moratorium by putting in restrictions 
on new units as they come available that may be a barrier to 
some lower-income Americans?
    Mr. Winn. I think that the repercussions are significant. 
And I think we are, as an industry, very excited to see these 
changes to the ERAP program, because so many of the hardships 
that are currently outstanding among the landlords would be 
resolved through a better administration of these funds.
    So, we are talking about the right thing, but if the 
administration of these funds is not improved significantly, 
then the $37 million of owed rent in our case, the billions of 
dollars across the country, is literally going to be lost, 
because again, tenants are going to move on, landlords are 
going to lose their properties to foreclosure, and they will 
never recover.
    So the effect has been significant, but there is a wait-
and-see attitude to see if we can figure out this ERAP program, 
because that will make a huge difference.
    Mr. Gonzalez of Ohio. Thank you. And again, Mr. Winn, in 
Chairwoman Waters' bill, it contains a provision which states 
that if a landlord receives rental assistance without the 
consent of the renter, even if this is payment only partially 
covering the renter's debts, that this payment will satisfy all 
monetary claims against the renter. Are you concerned that this 
provision specifically will deter landlords from seeking out 
emergency rental assistance, should that provision be enacted?
    Mr. Winn. Yes, it is a subset of the provision, yes, is a 
requirement to write off partial balances if only partial funds 
are received. I do believe that is a disincentive.
    And I don't know that it is necessary. I believe a bill 
could create other incentives to stably house folks that don't 
entertain these funds, that don't require write-off of past-due 
debts. There can be requirements to accept rental assistance 
program funds as an example in the future.
    That might be a better way to incent landlords to do it 
than to say, ``If you accept our money, you are writing off a 
30-percent loss.'' I am worried how that will affect the 
outroll.
    Mr. Gonzalez of Ohio. Thank you. I share that concern. And 
before I yield back, it just seems like we have a poorly-
designed program. I think that is very obvious, given the 
bottlenecks, again, 6.8 percent of money distributed in my home 
State of Ohio. It's a very poorly-designed program, and then we 
have a bad idea to fix a poorly-designed program.
    So, I oppose that bad idea, I support Mr. McHenry's 
legislation, and with that, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Don't forget, we had to correct the 
problems with PPP also. The big banks created their own portals 
and took care of their concierge clients. We had to put more 
money in it to straighten it out. It was not a perfect program. 
We made it work, as we are going to make this work.
    Mr. Gonzalez of Ohio. That is what I said. I did say it 
wasn't perfect, but the money got out.
    Chairwoman Waters. Ms. Dean is now recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Dean. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you for 
convening this important hearing and for being focused on 
solutions and success in making sure we protect people from 
evictions. And I say that with a special twist this week, 
because in my area of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, we were 
shockingly hit by Hurricane Ida, associated tornadoes, and 
devastating losses to housing, to tenants and their tenancies, 
to landlords, to homeowners, and to businesses small, medium, 
and large.
    We had Biblical-level flooding in my district, and 
tornadoes that we have never, ever, ever seen, losing a lot of 
our housing stock. So I offer that as a backdrop to say, we 
have to find a solution.
    I wanted to start with you, Mr. Morris, and I know you have 
been talked with a lot, but with good reason. I am from 
suburban Philadelphia, so I have heard about your program, and 
I am thrilled with its level of success. It is always good to 
have a Philadelphia presence on our panels.
    I read your testimony and learned more of the details of 
the Eviction Diversion Program and Emergency Rental Assistance 
Program in Philadelphia. I was hoping you could offer us a 
little bit more granular details as to the success: 
specifically, how many tenants have participated; how many 
landlords have participated; and in what proportion of cases 
did mediation result in a good outcome or some agreement?
    Your high percentage of being able to deliver relief is 
just to be commended. So, can you offer us a little more 
specifics on that, so that we might learn from it?
    Mr. Morris. Sure. I can try my best to offer you specifics 
with the data that we have. I can tell you so far, across all 
phases, we have spent $165 million in rental assistance dollars 
that have gotten out the door.
    In phase 4 alone, there have been about 13,454 households 
who have been assisted. So far, I think there are 50,000 
applications that are still pending, due to a resource limit, 
and also, just that the time to process the applications is not 
there.
    And we are working as hard as we can. We have spent 86 
percent of the money that has been allocated to us across all 
phases of the Emergency Rental Assistance Program. So, we are 
spending the money.
    And in terms of the average amount of assistance that is 
being paid out, we are paying out 8 months on average to 
households. The utility assistance we are paying is about 4 
months on average to households that have applied.
    I don't specifically have the number of landlords and 
tenants that have applied separately because we track them as 
households. The way our system is designed, there is a portal 
by which a landlord can go in and pre-register, and some have 
been registered since April when Phase 4 actually opened in 
Philadelphia, and then a tenant can apply with their 
applications and those applications are synced on the back end 
and processed as one.
    So for every household, I would not consider that a 
landlord in and of itself, because landlords do own several 
properties. But we measure them by households that have 
applied, and there are about 50,000, as I said, that are still 
outstanding, and we just don't, right now, have the financial 
resources to help all 50,000 of those, because we have spent 86 
percent of our funding thus far.
    But in terms of demographic data, I can provide that over 
74 percent of the households that we have helped have been 
below 30 percent of the area median income. So, those are very 
poor households that would otherwise not have any funds left 
over to help them deal with any sort of crisis. Never mind an 
ongoing COVID pandemic; they wouldn't have $500 to pay on a 
bill that they are not expecting. So, we are helping the most 
vulnerable. And our clients are also predominantly female; over 
66 percent of the applicants have been female.
    Ms. Dean. I wanted to ask you very quickly, how did you 
spread the word? And then, I want to get one more question in 
if I have the chance.
    Mr. Morris. We had an existing network of housing councils 
from the 2008 housing crisis. The City has also done a lot of 
advocacy around the program. And we have tenant advocates who 
have been on the ground working, and as someone contacts us 
about an eviction or has an instability, we provide information 
that rental assistance is available, and the courts have also 
cooperated with us in that process.
    Ms. Dean. Thank you. Thank you for that extraordinary 
success, and I hope we send you the resources you need.
    Mr. Schwartz, I just have a little bit of time left, but 
from the landlord perspective--because our committee and our 
Congress is always concerned with tenants and landlords, what 
successful outreach have you participated in?
    Mr. Schwartz. Outreach as far as promoting the programs, 
the ERAP program?
    Ms. Dean. Exactly.
    Mr. Schwartz. Yes. In our communities, we make all of our 
residents aware of rental assistance. Even before the pandemic, 
if anyone had trouble paying rent, we connected them with local 
charities or other programs. So nothing has changed.
    With the ERAP program, as I mentioned earlier, this has 
been an all-hands effort to help our residents.
    Chairwoman Waters. The gentlewoman's time has expired. I am 
so sorry, but we have to move on.
    Ms. Dean. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Waters. The gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Steil, 
is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Steil. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. I would 
like to dive in and follow up from right where my colleague, 
Mr. Gonzalez from Ohio, left off. Mr. Schwartz, I would like to 
ask you about the impact of landlords being forced to take a 
haircut. Maybe on the surface, it sounds like that might be a 
productive thing, it is anything to help renters, but I think 
in--not in a static model but in a dynamic model, where are 
those costs going to go?
    And, so, I would love your insight, in particular, if you 
think that there are going to be landlords across the country 
that are going to take those losses in one place, and then 
reach out to other renters in their pool, and try to recoup 
those costs, and what the impact would be on other renters who 
were not the beneficiary where the landlord took a haircut? 
Could you just start there? And then I have a follow-up 
question to that, if you would, Mr. Schwartz.
    Mr. Schwartz. Yes. One thing I mentioned is, we have rental 
inflation going on now that we probably all have read about, 
and one of the contributors is kind of the costs associated to 
the industry with moratoriums and haircuts, as you suggest.
    In California, when ERAP first came out, there was a 
blanket 20-percent haircut to the landlords by the State, and 
thankfully, that was changed, because the flow of funds from 
ERAP was going very slowly because of that haircut.
    Mr. Steil. So you are seeing the causation of some of these 
increases being--well, you take a haircut on the left, but 
ultimately you are raising prices on the right. Does that 
uniquely impact low- or moderate-income renters?
    Mr. Schwartz. I believe it does. Low- and moderate-income 
renters have a higher percentage of their income going to rent, 
and the rent--
    Mr. Steil. Okay. Trying to move quickly, I appreciate your 
insight on that. Let me shift over to you, Mr. Winn, if I can. 
In southeast Wisconsin, we have a lot of really small 
landlords. I lived in a duplex before I bought the house that I 
am in today. I was a renter there.
    Often, it's the case here in southeast Wisconsin that you 
will have somebody who owns a duplex where they live in one 
side of the duplex, and they have a tenant in the other. That 
is how they are covering their mortgage.
    Could you provide some insight as to how these policies 
have different impacts between the really big landlords that 
are out there versus these true mom-and-pops? I can't tell you 
how many landlords in a technical sense, but often they think 
of themselves as just a homeowner--they own a duplex, they are 
trying to rent out the other side--have been negatively 
impacted either by the eviction moratorium, or the ability to 
obtain funds and what the impact is, in particular, on some of 
these smaller families who are just trying to build some equity 
for themselves, of this policy would be, Mr. Winn?
    Mr. Winn. Yes. In Congressman Lynch's district, we call 
them triple deckers. So, yes, I understand what you are saying. 
No, the impact has to be severe. I think at this moment, we 
know the statistics are that 10 to 20 percent of the funds have 
reached their intended recipients.
    For a small landlord who has four or five units, or one or 
two, that is the real estate tax bill, that is the mortgage 
payment. That is it. So, we know that they don't have any 
wiggle room. They don't have any ability to go get a line of 
credit to cover these gaps.
    So, urgency is just as important as the actual amount of 
money for those small landlords. I think the committee is doing 
the right thing. We are here talking about it. We are here 
seeing how we can get the money out. But I can only imagine the 
hardships that small landlords are going through.
    Mr. Steil. I can't tell you how many of them have called my 
office, frustrated with the policies put in place by 
Washington, frustrated with how poorly-run and operated this 
has been in getting the funds out.
    There are a lot of people who are looking at their home's 
mortgage. If you own a duplex, your home is on the line when 
the other half of that duplex is truly paying zero rent, and 
you have no ability for recourse. It is a really serious 
problem, and I appreciate you providing those insights, Mr. 
Winn.
    With that, Madam Chairwoman, I will yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman 
from North Carolina, Ms. Adams, is now recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I appreciate 
the opportunity to share with you today. Ms. Yentel, Mr. 
Schwartz, thank you both for being here.
    During today's hearing, we have heard plenty about 
provisions in our legislation that allow landlords to directly 
apply for back rent. Specifically, we have heard about 
landlords' hesitancy regarding the requirement that accepting 
ERA funds would mandate them to house for an additional 120 
days.
    I think it is absolutely critical, though, that we tackle 
that hesitancy, and I want to talk just a moment about a 
solution that my local nonprofit is employing with a great deal 
of success.
    I represent Charlotte, North Carolina. Ramp CLT, as we call 
it, is, beyond any doubt, one of the most effective ERA 
administrators in the nation, serving the entirety of the City 
of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in North Carolina.
    They have been accepting self-attestations since the early 
days of the pandemic, and they work mostly with our County, our 
City, and other nonprofits to distribute ERA funds rapidly and 
accurately and critically. And in addition to any arrears they 
award, they also provide an additional 3 months of funding to 
ensure that tenants will remain stably housed.
    Now, those additional funds immediately help landlords and 
tenants come to the table, and have made Ramp CLT one of the 
most effective distributors of ERA dollars in my State.
    So, Ms. Yentel first, and then Mr. Schwartz, as a way to 
help bring reluctant stakeholders to the table, do you believe 
that ERA administrators should consider automatically providing 
several future months of rent along with any arrears?
    Ms. Yentel. Yes. Thank you for the question, but first, I 
think it is important just to clarify, as you did, that the 
prohibition on eviction for a short period of time is only for 
landlords who receive funds without any tenant involvement. 
That is a very important protection against fraud, against 
potential tenant harassment, against housing stability of 
tenants.
    I agree that the program that you named is a very strong 
program, and has been from the very beginning. They were very 
early to get started in spending with their ERA program. They 
set up a program that was very accessible for low-income 
tenants and for landlords, and they have been doing a great job 
in getting the money out.
    I think the solution that they came up with is a good, 
creative one that can be helpful in many cases. Certainly, it 
provides additional housing stability for those low-income 
renters, and it provides assurances for the landlords that 
those months of rent will be paid.
    So, I think it is a good solution that should be 
considered. The only caution I would make is that in some 
communities, they would need to first be sure that they have 
enough ERA to cover the arrears of all of the tenants in need 
before making this future 3-month rent payment automatic for 
all applicants.
    But I certainly think that in some cases, and in cases 
where the tenant needs that additional assistance, I think that 
is a very good component to a successful program.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you.
    Mr. Schwartz?
    Mr. Schwartz. Yes. I agree with Diane. I think you need to 
make sure you have enough money to pay the arrearages and what 
has been owed before committing to go forward.
    I think it would work on a voluntary basis. I think 
legislating it would, again, create this effect of reducing 
participation in the program that we don't want to happen, but 
I do think landlords would take advantage of it on a voluntary 
basis.
    Ms. Adams. Okay.
    Ms. Salazar, I want to just speak for just a moment about 
COVID-19's impact on women of color. In my conversations with 
the Ramp CLT administrator, I was disturbed to hear that the 
highest number of ERA applications were coming from African-
American women between the ages of 20 and 35, who had at least 
one child.
    So, how can Congress ensure that the outcomes of the 
Emergency Rental Assistance Program do not exacerbate existing 
racial inequities in housing?
    Ms. Salazar. Thank you so much, Ms. Adams. It is such a 
critical issue. We knew from the start that this pandemic would 
have a disproportionate impact on Black, Indigenous, and People 
of Color (BIPOC) communities, communities of color, and we are 
seeing that play out, of course.
    In our program here in the State of Oregon, we have 
contracted with the local community-based organizations to do 
outreach specifically in communities of color, with translated 
materials, to get the trusted relationship with community-based 
organizations to help folks apply for rental assistance. So, 
that outreach is critical.
    And the other piece that we are employing in our State is--
    Ms. Adams. I think I am out of time.
    Ms. Salazar. --priority within the queue. So, I would say 
that there are some reforms in the proposed legislation that we 
are talking about today--
    Ms. Adams. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Salazar. --to increase that technical assistance--
    Ms. Adams. Madam Chairwoman, I am yielding back. Okay, 
thank you.
    Chairwoman Waters. The gentlewoman's time has expired. 
Thank you.
    The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Taylor, is now recognized for 
5 minutes,
    Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I appreciate this 
hearing. I will comment that it is clear to me from all of our 
colleagues, the importance of trying to get this program to 
work properly and the frustration with it. And I certainly 
appreciate the bipartisan consensus that this needs to work 
well.
    What I have to admit I am frustrated with is, where is the 
Administration? They have been trying to operate this program 
for months and months and months, and they are not here. They 
are not providing the suggestions.
    I know, Madam Chairwoman, that you are very passionate 
about protecting renters, advocating for essentially the 
eviction moratorium. The President, only at the very last 
minute, advocated for it and then ultimately tried to do it by 
rule. And we knew that was unconstitutional, knew that it was 
illegal. It was struck down in court.
    He could have been here, ``here,'' meaning in this 
building, in Congress, advocating for change months and months 
ago, but he hasn't been. And so here we are, here you are, 
Madam Chairwoman, working to try to address this and, ``clean 
up the mess.''
    And so, I wanted to just say that one thing that is 
concerning to me in this legislation is the idea of self-
attestation. I know that nobody here wants to see limited 
government resources, limited taxpayer resources wasted, 
squandered, used in a way that is fraudulent. And I think that 
I speak for all of us when I say that none of us want to see 
that.
    I am concerned that self-attestation opens the door for 
fraud. And so, I really hope that we would revisit that. I know 
we want to go expeditiously, and I certainly concur with that 
general sentiment of, let's move quickly, let's make sure we 
get these dollars out.
    And I think that you have heard Republicans and Democrats 
talk about the slowness of the process in terms of getting the 
dollars out. And that is why we are here, we are here to talk 
about why it is slow, and how can we improve it.
    I think it is a little late to be having this discussion. 
We should have been having this discussion months and months 
ago. But nevertheless, here we are today.
    Ms. Salazar, a question for you, you indicated earlier, a 
few hours ago I think, that you had participated, or been 
consulted about the drafting of the legislation in front of us 
today. Did I hear you correctly?
    Ms. Salazar. Thank you so much, sir. Yes. The National 
Council of State Housing Agencies (NCSHA) has been engaged in 
these dialogues around the legislation.
    Mr. Taylor. And was that consultation by the Legislative 
Branch or the Executive Branch?
    Ms. Salazar. It was the Legislative Branch.
    Mr. Taylor. Okay. So, has the Department of Housing and 
Urban Development or the Secretary of the Treasury reached out 
to you? Has there been any effort by the Executive Branch to 
try to reach out to you to ask about the implementation of this 
program?
    Ms. Salazar. Certainly, Representative. We have had 
dialogues with officials at the U.S. Treasury. They have been 
helpful dialogues. NCSHA proposed, for example, the bulk 
payment process to get bulk payments out to landlords, and the 
Administration was receptive.
    I think where we stand at this point is that the guidance 
from Treasury has been helpful, but we need those statutory 
changes to really codify the reforms necessary to be able to 
expedite the program. Sox, really building on some of the early 
dialogues we have had with Treasury.
    I will just say one other piece is that we are in dire need 
of guidance from Treasury around how they will approach the 
reallocation issue. We are rapidly coming up on September 30th.
    Programs like ours in Oregon are pulling out all the stops 
to expedite payments getting out the door, and we need to 
understand clearly from Treasury that they will take into 
account things like the strong demand for the program on the 
ground, and the efforts that States like ours are making to 
expedite payment.
    That is one area where we have not received the guidance 
that we need.
    Mr. Taylor. Sure. Are you testifying here today that you 
are still waiting for guidance from the Administration in order 
to implement these programs?
    Ms. Salazar. I would say, in some regard, the guidance has 
been forthcoming. For example, the recent guidance to--
    Mr. Taylor. But I think you just said you are waiting for 
guidance--is that right, you are waiting for guidance?
    Ms. Salazar. We are waiting for guidance, sir, specifically 
on the issue of how Treasury will address the September 30th--
    Mr. Taylor. Again, I guess I will just express frustration, 
individually, and I think I speak for my colleagues--I am 
really frustrated that the Administration isn't really coming 
to the table, isn't really offering legislative solutions, 
isn't really leading on this.
    I am glad to see the chairwoman and the ranking member 
working, in slightly different contexts, but trying to come up 
with solutions. And I really think that the Executive Branch 
needs to be part of this and part of these discussions.
    Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. And we are all 
working toward finalizing some of these issues and concerns. I 
am working with the Treasury, working with the Administration, 
and offering to work with the ranking member. So thank you very 
much.
    Next, we will hear from the gentlewoman from New York, Ms. 
Ocasio-Cortez. You are now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you so much, Madam Chairwoman, for 
hosting this hearing, and as Representative Dean had mentioned 
earlier, we just experienced devastating floods for which my 
district was ground zero, in New York City, for the floods from 
Hurricane Ida.
    And this has been a travesty in my district. We have lost 
12 people in these floods, and the connection here is that in 
almost every person lost to the floods, it was related to our 
housing crisis. The lack of available housing stock and the 
fear of eviction existed even prior to the pandemic, and the 
pandemic has only made it worse, to the point that people are 
seeking alternatives to the housing stock that are often 
dangerous.
    Now, that being said, speaking about those long-standing 
inequities, many low-income renters struggled to make ends meet 
even before the pandemic. And with the lapsing of unemployment, 
the striking of the eviction moratorium, all of these things 
have placed renters in an even more perilous position.
    We have discussed some of the difficulties, and the 
committee has addressed some of the difficulties in State 
implementation. But I also want to talk a little bit about the 
difficulties in getting these funds out with the segment of 
landlords who are refusing to participate in emergency rental 
assistance.
    Ms. Yentel, is there evidence that lack of tenant 
participation is a widespread problem for the Emergency Rental 
Assistance Program?
    Ms. Yentel. I have not seen any evidence or data to show 
that there is a widespread problem of tenants not 
participating.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Okay.
    Ms. Yentel. There is clear evidence of tenants not 
completing applications, which points to inaccessible and 
overly complicated applications that need to be simplified.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Okay. I see. And would you say that in 
relation to tenant participation, is lack of landlord 
participation in the program more of a frequent problem that we 
are noticing?
    Ms. Yentel. We have seen evidence of this, yes. In a survey 
that we and others did, about 44 percent of program 
administrators said that landlords refusing to participate in 
ERA programs was a challenge. And from some of the more recent 
conversations, I would say that number has likely grown.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So that means that when landlords refuse 
to participate, some Emergency Rental Assistance Programs are 
not required to provide assistance directly to tenants, and 
they could face eviction or homelessness if their landlord 
vetoes the application. Is that right?
    Ms. Yentel. That is right. Unfortunately, it is optional 
for program administrators to utilize direct-to-tenant 
assistance if landlords participate, and we are seeing that 
only about 28 percent of all ERA programs are explicitly 
allowing direct-to-tenant assistance. That means there are many 
tenants who are having their application closed, who are not 
getting any of the assistance they need because the landlord 
has refused to participate.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And this is consistent with something I 
have been seeing. If you are a tenant and you want to make 
right on your back rent, and you apply for the Emergency Rental 
Assistance Program, if your landlord has been trying to get you 
out, they can refuse, in the majority of programs, to accept 
your rental assistance and evict you and use that as grounds to 
evict you. Is that correct?
    Ms. Yentel. That is correct, and we are seeing some very 
egregious cases of tenants showing up in eviction court with 
the emergency rental assistance in their hands, and the 
landlord saying, I don't want it, and the judge allowing the 
eviction to move forward.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. It seems as though we have a very urgent 
issue, and I am so thankful to see Chairwoman Waters address 
these issues.
    Now, my last question is, what types of enforcement 
mechanisms should we be exploring to ensure that the tenant 
protections in this bill are adhered to by landlords?
    Ms. Yentel. That is a really important point, and we 
strongly recommend that the legislation be very clear in 
identifying a Federal agency, the DOJ or the CFPB, and give 
them clear authority and responsibility to ensure that the 
tenant protections in this legislation are followed and adhered 
to.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you so very much.
    Ms. Yentel. Thank you.
    Mr. Schwartz. I would like to just chime in on this topic, 
because I am a landlord, so I can give you some reasons we have 
seen landlords not want to participate. In a State like New 
York, there are conditions imposed by participating, like rent 
freezes, not being able to charge late fees, and extended 
protracted moratoriums. That makes it hard for the landlords to 
participate with all of those conditions.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentlelady's time has 
expired.
    The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Loudermilk, is now 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Loudermilk. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    First, I would like to recall how we arrived at this point. 
First, the CDC established an eviction moratorium despite 
having no statutory authority to do so. Then, after Congress 
established a bipartisan rental assistance program in December, 
Democrats created an entirely new partisan program with a 
conflicting set of rules.
    Because of that incompetent law-making or policy-making, 
the funds are now stuck in an administrative mess, and only a 
fraction, a small fraction has been distributed.
    When HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge testified before this 
committee 2 months ago, she said if we get the rental 
assistance programs to actually work, then there is no need for 
an eviction moratorium. But instead of focusing on getting the 
rental assistance program to work, Democrats tried to pass 
legislation to extend the eviction moratorium.
    When that failed, the President then directed the CDC to 
extend the eviction moratorium, which he knew was 
unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court struck it down.
    The HUD Secretary also said that streamlining the rental 
assistance program would help get the funds out more quickly, 
and unlike the Members of the Majority who are just now turning 
their attention to this, Republicans proposed a bill to fix the 
rental assistance program 3 months ago.
    There are more than 10 million jobs available right now, 
more than at any other time in the history of this country. 
There are more open jobs than there are unemployed people, but 
instead of focusing on getting people back into the workforce, 
the Majority now wants to remove any requirement for renters to 
have a hardship in order to receive rental assistance, and make 
taxpayer-funded rent a long-term entitlement regardless of 
whether people actually need it.
    Mr. Winn, one of the items in the Majority's bill is that 
it would require landlords who apply for rental assistance on a 
tenant's behalf to accept any amount they receive as satisfying 
the entire rent debt, even if the amount they receive is 
thousands of dollars short of what is owed. Does that provide 
any incentive to the landlords to apply for these funds?
    Mr. Winn. Thank you for the question. And I would answer 
that in two ways. One is, I think we would appreciate more 
clarity on what the proposal actually says, because read in its 
worst way, it could be true that by accepting $3,000 in rental 
assistance, you could be foregoing $6,000. And that doesn't 
help anybody.
    So, I think it would be very important to clarify what 
those rules are, and frankly, don't make them so burdensome 
that landlords can't participate.
    Mr. Loudermilk. I appreciate that.
    Also, the government is the reason why so many property 
owners have been unable to collect rent and evict non-paying 
tenants. Should the government make landlords whole by allowing 
the rental assistance funds to reimburse property owners even 
if the renter has moved? That is for Mr. Winn.
    Mr. Winn. Yes. I think--and I mentioned this earlier--that 
is a critical aspect of this. And it is only going to happen 
more as we go through the pandemic. There are going to be 
tenants who see insurmountable balances of rent delinquency, 
and just say, I have to move. And so it is almost an effective 
eviction, but it is somebody deciding to move, and unless the 
program explicitly allows rent on those vacant units, the 
landlords are the only ones left holding the bag. So the 
proposal really should, and I hope does, address that.
    Mr. Loudermilk. Okay. Thank you.
    Mr. Schwartz, do you agree that consolidating the two 
Emergency Rental Assistance Programs under the ERA 1 program 
rules would get the funds out more quickly?
    Mr. Schwartz. I agree with respect to focusing on 
arrearages, arrearages with respect to vacant units like you 
just spoke about, and occupied units, and by consolidating 
them, because ERAP 1 did prioritize arrearages, and we think 
that is very important.
    Mr. Loudermilk. Okay.
    Madam Chairwoman, I have no other questions, so I will 
yield back. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
    The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Garcia, is now recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Garcia of Illinois. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and 
thank you for your leadership on this issue. Good afternoon to 
all of our panelists.
    The majority of the constituents I represent are renters, 
so this issue is very personal to me. Millions of people across 
the country lost their homes after the last financial crisis 10 
years ago, but working-class communities like mine never 
recovered. Families got evicted and priced out. In Chicago, 
this is a racial-justice issue.
    The Logan Square neighborhood in my district lost over 
10,000 Black families and 20,000 Latino families in the last 
decade. I can't stand by and let this happen again, and that is 
why I fought for an eviction moratorium, and why I fought for 
emergency rental assistance, and now, I am fighting to make 
sure that the program works for neighborhoods like those in my 
district.
    The whole point of rental assistance is to keep people in 
their homes, and it is our job to make sure that happens. So, I 
want to thank the chairwoman and the ranking member for 
convening this important hearing, and say thanks to all of our 
witnesses today.
    I do want to direct a couple of questions to Ms. Yentel. 
You talked about the importance of tenant protections in the 
Rental Assistance Program. I know firsthand how landlords have 
a lot of different tools to get rid of tenants they don't want. 
Filing an eviction in court is only one of them.
    Can you briefly talk about how landlords might get rid of 
tenants without formally evicting them, and is this common?
    Ms. Yentel. Yes. And it is important to recognize too that 
there are multiple reasons why landlords might refuse to 
participate in programs, and we have heard that concessions 
required of them is one.
    Another reason why we are seeing some landlords not wanting 
to participate is because they are in hot rental markets and 
there is a financial benefit to actually evicting the current 
tenant, increasing rents, and making more money in the long 
run. There is also a challenge of landlords who have unlicensed 
or otherwise illegal units who can't access the emergency 
rental assistance funds.
    We do see during the pandemic and at other times as well, 
unfortunately, ways that landlords harass or push out tenants. 
It is not a formal eviction filing and it is illegal in most 
places, but they might put a lock on the door and just not let 
the tenant back in; they might turn off utilities, turn off 
water, and force that tenant out; or, in less explicit ways, 
they use harassment to push that tenant out.
    It is part of the reason why it is so essential that these 
protections be included if ERA is given directly to landlords 
without any tenant involvement. It is certainly not all 
landlords who will act this way, but we have to prevent 
creating perverse incentives for landlords to potentially 
harass tenants, to push them out, receive the emergency rental 
assistance, without having to agree to any of these other 
requirements that we are hearing are considered so onerous for 
landlords.
    Mr. Garcia of Illinois. Thank you for that. And I have a 
follow-up question. How can Congress improve the rental 
assistance program to prevent landlords from unreasonably 
getting rid of tenants and claiming funds anyway?
    Ms. Yentel. Again, in most cases, landlords and tenants are 
applying for assistance together, and the landlord gets paid 
for the arrears that are owed to them. In those cases, there 
are ways the programs need to be improved; they need to be 
simplified; there needs to be self-attestation used; they need 
to do outreach to get that money out faster.
    In cases where the committee considers allowing landlords 
to receive assistance without involvement of the tenant, there 
have to be strong protections in place for that tenant to 
remain stably housed. And many of those protections are 
included in the chairwoman's legislation--protections against 
eviction immediately after receiving the funds, protections 
against going back and claiming more funds from the tenant in 
the future--and are really important protections to ensure that 
we are not increasing tenant harassment or housing instability.
    Mr. Garcia of Illinois. Great. Thank you very much.
    Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. 
Timmons, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    We all voted for the CARES Act back in March of 2020. That 
legislation, of course, included an eviction moratorium which 
would last until July 24, 2020. I think that most people 
thought that was reasonable. It was the right thing to do. We 
needed to help people who needed help. But I don't think anyone 
on this committee would have anticipated or supported such a 
moratorium going on for another year, but that is exactly what 
happened, and even that wasn't long enough for some people.
    I also think it is fair to say that, at that time, most of 
us serving on this committee truly believed that renters who 
are economically disadvantaged because of economic lockdowns 
often imposed by State and local governments should not have 
been evicted from their homes. That is just straightforward 
common sense.
    But so much has changed between then and now, primarily the 
development and distribution of safe and effective COVID 
vaccines for anyone who wants one. This allowed the economy to 
largely reopen over the spring and summer months of 2021, 
making jobs available literally almost everywhere. There are 
10.9 million jobs available in this country today.
    I talk to employers of all different sizes and industries, 
and a common refrain is always, we need more people. We need 
more people working. Jobs are available, and thanks to the 
vaccine, it is safe to return to the workplace.
    On top of this, as we all know, Congress has shelled out 
close to $50 billion in rental assistance funds to help renters 
cover back rent they may owe. These two developments, vaccines 
allowing for the economy to reopen and the Emergency Rental 
Assistance Program, made an eviction moratorium completely 
unnecessary many months ago.
    If the last few months have taught us anything, it is that 
the current Administration is completely incapable of putting a 
plan in place and executing it, with the primary examples being 
the disastrous Afghanistan debacle, and this emergency rental 
program.
    We have also learned that President Biden has zero qualms 
about abusing his power. I think at the other end of 
Pennsylvania Avenue, we have forgotten that in our system of 
government, Congress writes the laws and the President executes 
them. He doesn't get to just do whatever he wants or gets 
pressured into doing when people camp out on the Capitol steps. 
The Supreme Court has already knocked down this illegal 
moratorium extension, and will surely do the same for the 
vaccine mandates we saw last night.
    What is sad is that this was all avoidable. A competent 
White House would have had ERAP up and running, and been 
working with State and local governments to distribute dollars 
in a productive way that would have made the eviction 
moratorium debate a moot debate.
    I know everyone on this committee wants to help people in 
this country who need help, but we need to be thoughtful in the 
manner in which we deliver that help, and make sure that it is 
not counterproductive.
    One of the biggest problems we have had implementing any 
new program, particularly ones that are quickly stood up and 
quickly send money out the door, is with making sure that only 
the intended eligible recipients get funds, and fraudsters get 
locked out.
    I think that we need to really be careful that we are not 
going to do more harm than good. We have to get back to work. 
We have almost 11 million jobs available, and the only way that 
we are going to get out of this--the only way we are going to 
get our economy back on track is by getting back to work.
    Mr. Winn, I know hindsight is 2020, and it is easy to be a 
Monday morning quarterback, but looking back over the last 18 
months, if you knew all this was coming, what is the one step 
you wish we could have taken to weather the storm that was/is 
COVID, and why?
    Mr. Winn. I would say--I feel like I am repeating myself so 
I apologize, but I do believe it would be the informed consent 
model for tenants rather than the wet signature. I do believe 
that would have doubled the amount of resources we could have 
given to tenants on that basis.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you. I just want to remind everybody 
that we have $30 trillion in debt and we are talking about 
spending trillions and trillions of dollars we don't have. Our 
kids, our grandkids, and our great grandkids are going to have 
to pay this money back. It is not just funny money.
    We have to get serious and we have to help people who need 
help, but we have to get our economy back open and get people 
back to work, because that is the only way that we are going to 
be able to help the people who need help the most.
    And, with that, Madam Chairwoman, I yield back. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
    The gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Garcia, is now recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Garcia of Texas. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And thank 
you once again for your leadership on this issue and for 
prioritizing this very important piece of legislation that will 
help many constituents in my district and all across America 
stay housed this winter.
    During the pandemic, our county has faced unimaginable 
challenges. In Houston, many families were still trying to 
recover from Hurricane Harvey when COVID hit. As of now, 
hundreds and thousands of Houstonians are behind on their rent, 
and since April 2020, Harris County landlords have filed almost 
34,000 cases for eviction--34,000 just here in Harris County.
    With our dollars that we have received through the ERA 1, 
as page 10 of Ms. Yentel's paper suggests, Harris County is at 
81.9 percent, almost 90 percent of the dollars. I understand 
anecdotally that the dollars are gone, and I can tell you that 
if there is any city or State or county that has extra dollars, 
we will take them, because the need is great in Houston and 
Harris County. We must also make sure that all of the measures 
that we are taking here do not adversely impact on any renter's 
ability to apply for any of these funds.
    My first question is for Ms. Yentel. Ms. Yentel, in your 
testimony, you highlighted that among those behind on their 
rent, 31 percent of the households were forced to use debt 
instruments such as credit cards to make ends meet. And last 
month, the New York Fed reported that household debt is at an 
historic high of almost $15 trillion, that is, ``trillion,'' 
with a ``T,'' marking the largest nominal household debt 
increase since 2007.
    This, of course, concerns me because some people did pay 
their rent, they just put it on their credit card, and now they 
are stuck with credit card debt. So what can we do to make sure 
that we aren't forcing people to take on more risk than they 
are ready for? And could you elaborate on any of the ripple 
effects that any of these financial hardships due to housing--
what that does to consumers and the economy in general?
    Ms. Yentel. Yes, and it is one of, I would say, the very 
unfortunate consequences of Congress having delayed action on 
finalizing emergency rental assistance for so long. As you 
know, in the House of Representatives, emergency rental 
assistance was passed 3 times, in May, June, and July. If the 
emergency rental assistance had been enacted in that time, it 
could have been used as it was designed, which was to keep low-
income renters current on their rent, to help them pay the rent 
during the pandemic and not fall behind.
    The legislation was held up in the Senate under Republican 
leadership, and it wasn't enacted until December of 2020. By 
then, tenants had accrued an estimated $50 billion in rent 
arrears, and it became a different need that the program was 
trying to serve, which was to help pay those rent arrears. So, 
that is one of the more unfortunate outcomes of how long it 
took for Congress ultimately to enact this.
    As you said, in the meantime, most tenants did everything 
they could to stay current on their rent during the pandemic. 
And some of them had to make tradeoffs in not buying store-
bought food or paying for internet, despite their children 
needing it for virtual school, and many of them took out loans 
or used credit cards to pay for the rent.
    The data is very clear that there was an increase in the 
number of tenants using credit cards to pay the rent, and, in 
fact, many landlords were in communication with tenants, 
encouraging that to keep the rent payments current.
    It is unfortunate now that many of those tenants hold that 
debt but are not able to be paid back through the Emergency 
Rental Assistance Program for the debt that they owe. And I 
would encourage the committee to consider ways to enable 
tenants who can prove that they used credit cards or otherwise 
took out loans to stay current on their rent, to access 
emergency rental assistance to make them whole as well.
    Ms. Garcia of Texas. Thank you.
    And quickly, Mr. Morris, I had a question for you about 
translation services and interpreters. I think it was you who 
testified that some of the delay and some of the concerns from 
the renter side is not having the forms and the information, 
the outreach information in the language of their own. Is this 
a problem nationwide that we also need to address?
    Mr. Morris. I believe this is a nationwide problem, and all 
of our applications in Philadelphia are available in several 
languages based on demographics for the populations.
    Ms. Garcia of Texas. But should this be a mandate in the 
bill itself? Because obviously--
    Mr. Morris. It should.
    Ms. Garcia of Texas. --we are hearing that in some cities, 
in some programs, that is not the case. So, the only way that 
we can make it uniform and that we make the program accessible 
to everyone would be to put it in the bill. Would you agree?
    Mr. Morris. I agree. Even if the bill itself has not 
changed, there should be a person who can interpret on behalf 
of someone in a different language available.
    Chairwoman Waters. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Ms. Garcia of Texas. Thank you, and I yield back. Thank 
you, Madam Chairwoman.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you.
    The gentlewoman from Georgia, Ms. Williams, is now 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and 
thank you for holding this hearing today.
    Too many renters, through no fault of their own, have 
fallen behind on rent payments during this pandemic due to 
economic hardship, forcing people on the streets during a 
pandemic that is still raging, and I have seen it firsthand.
    Back in early June, when a local eviction moratorium 
expired, I posted pictures on social media from my district 
where people's belongings had been tossed out on the street, 
and this was with the CDC eviction moratorium still in effect. 
That is because people didn't know how to access the actual 
moratorium, let alone the rental assistance associated.
    Those pictures were a stark reminder that we must keep 
working to find a Federal solution to keep people in their 
homes. I knew that we had to pull every lever to protect 
tenants from eviction and give them a leg up in recovering from 
this pandemic.
    For one, the CDC eviction moratorium protected countless 
families, which is why I was quick to cosponsor Chairwoman 
Waters' bill to extend it through the end of the year. 
Unfortunately, some Members of Congress stood in the way of 
this extension despite the tireless work of Chairwoman Waters, 
Speaker Pelosi, and so many other Members of Congress working 
to protect our constituents.
    However, like Chairwoman Waters, I knew that we couldn't 
stop fighting. We still have to address the fundamental problem 
of getting folks out of rental debt. The key is efficiently 
distributing the rental assistance already provided by 
Congress, which has gone out too slowly in many localities.
    This week, I was proud to join Chairwoman Waters, and co-
sponsor the introduction of the Expediting Assistance to 
Renters and Landlords Act, which will make the rental 
assistance Congress approved go out more efficiently. And 
today, I am glad to talk more about how we get rental 
assistance to the people.
    Ms. Yentel, in your testimony, you noted that my home 
county of Fulton County, Georgia, has distributed 76 percent of 
the ERA 1 funds that were allotted; however, the rate is not 
that high in every county nearby. In fact, you noted that 
Georgia as a whole has only distributed 3.6 percent of its 
funds.
    If enacted, to what extent will the Expediting Assistance 
to Renters and Landlords Act help to reduce distribution 
disparities in places like my home State of Georgia? And in 
addition to pushing for passage of this legislation, what 
should Members of Congress be doing to help more localities get 
assistance out the door more quickly to people in need?
    Ms. Yentel. Thank you. The legislation that Chairwoman 
Waters has introduced and that you cosponsored would speed up 
the assistance of emergency rental assistance in several ways, 
and it would build on lessons learned and best practices during 
the pandemic.
    We have learned by now very clearly what makes some 
programs so successful and what makes some programs much less 
so. Some of the reforms that are included in this legislation, 
for example, would require that all programs use self-
attestation for all eligibility requirements. This would 
drastically streamline applications, and speed up the delivery 
of funds. It would also require that all programs utilize 
direct-to-tenant assistance when landlords refuse to 
participate, ensuring that tenants aren't penalized for their 
landlord's lack of action.
    It would redefine eligible grantees for emergency rental 
assistance to go beyond State and local government entities to 
include the community-based nonprofit organizations that are 
doing the door-knocking and outreach to get tenants engaged in 
the process.
    It would prohibit the requirement of written leases, which 
has also been a barrier for some landlords and for many of the 
most marginalized tenants who have informal leases but still 
owe rent to their landlords. So, there are a number of really 
important changes and protections in the legislation, which we 
support.
    In terms of what more Members of Congress can do, I think 
this legislation is a very good start, but I also think taking 
the actions that you have taken in your community to help 
improve and encourage improvement of these Emergency Rental 
Assistance programs, the example that Chairwoman Waters gave of 
the actions she has taken in Los Angeles, to connect legal aid 
attorneys with the emergency rental assistance with the 
landlords, this is really important leadership that all Members 
of Congress could take that could help educate constituents 
about the availability of resources and then help them to 
access them.
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you, Ms. Yentel. And not 
knowing what the future holds, do you think it would be useful 
to study the implementation of the Emergency Rental Assistance 
Program, including any changes to the program, to see how we 
might improve other programs, going forward, across the 
country?
    Ms. Yentel. Absolutely, we should be constantly studying, 
learning, and improving as we go for this and for any future 
programs that are set forth.
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. My 
time has expired, and I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you.
    The gentleman from West Virginia, Mr. Mooney, is now 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Mooney. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    We understand that last month, the White House essentially 
caved to political pressure from the left and unilaterally 
extended the eviction moratorium, even though they knew it was 
unconstitutional for President Biden to assume this power to 
himself, the power that is rightly placed in the legislature, 
the Congress.
    After the court struck down the moratorium and once again 
told the White House that it was unconstitutional, Democrats in 
committee here, in Congress, finally decided to propose changes 
to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program. The Republicans had 
already proposed changes to the Emergency Rental Assistance 
Program months ago, well before the eviction moratorium 
standoff took place.
    Instead of going to the President to abuse his powers, we 
should have worked with committee members on common-sense 
reforms. Now, the Democrats are rushing to do a rental 
assistance program through this process. We are scheduled to 
mark up this bill on Monday of next week. And we are having a 
hearing on the bill Friday, today, the week before.
    Hearings are supposed to give us a chance to step back and 
assess legislation well before they are marked up or make it to 
the House Floor. But there are zero business days between our 
hearing and this legislation and the scheduled markup vote. 
That is unfortunate, because I think this bill has some very 
significant problems.
    I am concerned that the legislation could open up the 
Emergency Rental Assistance Program to waste, fraud, and abuse. 
One of the most irresponsible provisions in this bill, which 
appears to be a completely one-sided partisan Democrat bill, 
which we have seen too much of in this Congress, is it requires 
self-attestation from a renter to be considered as proof of 
eligibility for the program.
    That means an applicant could self-report their income and 
receive rental assistance from the United States taxpayers with 
no documentation, and no verification. If someone simply tells 
the government they are income eligible for the program, we 
just take their word for it. This bill would say, take their 
word for it and give them the hard-earned taxpayer dollars.
    I was pleased that my colleague, Congressman Andy Barr of 
Kentucky, mentioned earlier in his comments that we are talking 
about the use of hard-earned taxpayer dollars here, not money 
that grows on trees that the government just has; the 
government doesn't have any money that they don't first take 
from the United States taxpayers. It is their money we are 
watching over here.
    So, my question is directed to you, Mr. Winn and Mr. 
Schwartz. When a potential resident begins the process of 
moving into one of your units, can they self-attest their 
income level or do you use some means of verifying their income 
level?
    Mr. Winn. I can answer that as it relates to governmental 
programs that we help administer, like the Low-Income Housing 
Tax Credit or Section 8. Yes, there has to be verified income 
for those Federal programs. So by and large, we do have that 
information in our own portfolio. For market-rate renters, for 
renters who are not under those programs, we are not in the 
business of verifying their income necessarily, so I just 
wanted to point that out.
    Mr. Mooney. Mr. Schwartz?
    Mr. Schwartz. Yes, we do income verification for our 
residents. I guess my only point with self-attestation is the 
download of these forms, particularly for lower-income 
residents, has been a big barrier to getting the emergency 
renters assistance, and we do our best to help them, but self-
attestation would streamline the process. And I do think there 
is a capability of the Federal Government to audit the self-
attestations through the tax returns and information the 
government has and catch people who are committing fraud.
    Mr. Mooney. Okay. Thank you for that.
    A quick follow-up to both of you, if you were forced to 
accept self-attestation as proof of income, would that cause 
you to be concerned about the tenant's ability to pay rent?
    Mr. Winn. I just want to say, I think that the issue that 
we are encountering now as a country is not landlords getting 
paid too much out of ERAP; it is landlords getting paid too 
little. So, I do believe that if the attestation can help get 
the money out--the flip side of that argument is that smaller 
landlords are often unable to have the follow-up required to 
verify incomes themselves, to make sure that the tax returns 
are properly dated, to make sure that they have filed it 
correctly. So, I do believe there is a need to simplify the 
process.
    And to your question of, would it put us in a position to 
take somebody as a tenant that we otherwise wouldn't have, I 
think the issue is that they are already there. They are 
already in our units, and we can't find a way to get them ERAP.
    Mr. Schwartz. Yes. And I would just follow up--I know you 
are out of time--that we only verify once. We don't know after 
the tenant moves in what their income is. They could be with us 
for 10 years, and we wouldn't know.
    Mr. Mooney. Okay. I don't know if I am out of time, but I 
have a closing statement if I am not out of time. Thank you for 
your comments.
    I want to say, I think it would be irresponsible--
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentleman's time has long 
expired.
    The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Auchincloss, is now 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Auchincloss. Madam Chairwoman, thank you for the 
opportunity to work on this bill.
    I have heard a number of my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle talk about the unconstitutionality of President 
Biden's actions. And while I appreciate that everyone in 
Congress needs to be laser-focused on protecting the 
Constitution and holding the Administration to account, I have 
to say that these words would resonate more with me if we had 
seen this same kind of attention on the Constitution in the 
last 4 years, after the most egregious depredations of the 
Constitution in the history of the United States, by President 
Trump. So, I would encourage everybody in Congress of both 
parties to continue to hold Presidents of both parties to 
account for protecting and defending the Constitution.
    I am also hearing a tremendous amount of frustration, again 
from both sides, about the bureaucracy and the paperwork around 
if it was grounded in good intentions and was really directed 
towards an extreme need. And it has made me think a lot about 
the Child Tax Credit.
    And the connection here is that we have seen over and over 
again empirically with Federal policy that when we directly 
transfer money to working families, whether it is through the 
Child Tax Credit or the Earned Income Tax Credit, they spend it 
on what they need and they spend it on a better future for 
their kids.
    And so, the expansion of the Child Tax Credit and making 
permanent the tremendous gain in childhood poverty reduction 
that we will achieve in the American Rescue Plan and 
reconciliation can be viewed not just as expanding and 
improving social welfare, but also, in the long run, obviating 
the need for some of these programs that I know my Republican 
colleagues get frustrated with for sometimes being inefficient 
or bureaucratic or increasing red tape. Just give money 
directly to people [inaudible] Needs [inaudible] Without being 
market distortions or even without creating a new level of 
Federal bureaucracy. So, I would encourage you to think about 
the Child Tax Credit in that lens.
    I will pivot now towards the program in question. And, 
again, Madam Chairwoman, thank you for the work that you have 
done to help correct some of the flaws we have had in the 
distribution of these funds.
    Earlier this week, a local news station, WBUR, [inaudible] 
Renters in the southern part of the district I represent in 
Bristol County were twice as likely to have been evicted during 
the pandemic. And they have actually seen more authorizations 
for evictions in two cities, Fall River and New Bedford, than 
in Boston, which is a city 6 times their size.
    There are a lot of reasons for this, but one of them, as 
the article pointed out, is that some renters do not even learn 
of the rental assistance at all until they are actually in 
eviction court itself, and sometimes learn of rental assistance 
even in eviction court. They are literally getting evicted 
through the court process and never had been told about it.
    So, I would like to focus on housing courts and their role 
as the last tripwire in this whole process for making people 
aware of their rights. Ms. Salazar, if you could start by 
saying if you have seen any programs that are effective, where 
the courts are doing their job?
    Ms. Salazar. Thank you, sir, for that question about the 
role of courts and eviction diversion. Certainly, our hope is 
to be able to respond quickly to get rental assistance into the 
hands of tenants before we reach that point.
    But one of the things that we are seeing work really well 
is that our local program administrators on the ground are 
collaborating with the court systems to intervene and directly 
get rental assistance into the hands of folks who have received 
a filing. And so, it is those kinds of relationships and 
cooperation that are absolutely critical.
    And I would say that one of the things that is helpful in 
the chairwoman's bill is being more focused on administrative 
dollars, technical assistance, and the support for local 
community-based organizations so that we can set up those kinds 
of effective programs to engage [inaudible] Solution.
    Mr. Auchincloss. And in my final minute, Ms. Salazar, 
again, perhaps you could, and with each witness [inaudible] Say 
for the sake of the record whether you support self-attestation 
as programmed in this bill.
    Ms. Salazar. Thank you for the question. Self-attestation 
certainly speeds the provision of rental assistance. What we 
have seen in our own program in Oregon is that some of our 
local administrators have been quick to adopt self-attestation 
as part of the process and some have been slower to adopt it 
for various reasons. And when we see it utilized--
    Mr. Auchincloss. Ms. Salazar, I apologize for interrupting, 
but I only have about 20 seconds. I want to let the other 
witnesses quickly say if they support self-attestation or not.
    Mr. Morris, perhaps you next?
    Mr. Morris. I do support self-attestation.
    Mr. Auchincloss. Thank you.
    Mr. Winn?
    Mr. Winn. Yes. It is not a perfect solution, but I do think 
it is required at this time to get the money out effectively.
    Mr. Auchincloss. Thank you.
    Mr. Schwartz?
    Mr. Schwartz. Yes, I support self-attestation.
    Mr. Auchincloss. Okay. Thank you.
    Ms. Yentel. And we strongly support it as well.
    Mr. Auchincloss. Thank you all.
    Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentleman's time has 
expired.
    Do we have any more Members on the platform who have not 
yet participated?
    If not, I would like to thank all of our witnesses for 
being here today and for providing us with very valuable 
testimony.
    The Chair notes that some Members may have additional 
questions for these witnesses, which they may wish to submit in 
writing. Without objection, the hearing record will remain open 
for 5 legislative days for Members to submit written questions 
to these witnesses and to place their responses in the record. 
Also, without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days 
to submit extraneous materials to the Chair for inclusion in 
the record.
    And, with that, this hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:44 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                            A P P E N D I X

                           September 10, 2021
                           
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