MOUNTAIN VIEW — In an effort to bolster its fund to provide rent relief for those affected by the economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus outbreak, council members voted Monday to add about $1.1 million to its aid fund.
The approval comes about a week after council members passed a $1.3 million relief package for local small businesses, seniors, homeless and unstably housed. Just under half of that money was allocated for rent relief, a sum that would have left hundreds of families out despite qualifying for aid.
Just after the last city council meeting, Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga said in an interview that more than 830 households have already sought rent relief from Community Services Agency, a city rental assistance group that will administer the about half a million dollars the city has given for rent relief.
Back then she said about 50 to 80 would receive assistance, and that even if the city allocated $1 million for one month of rent relief, it could only cover about 500 families.
In an interview Wednesday, Abe-Koga said about 1,100 people have applied for help paying rent and that some 160 families have already received checks of $2,000, many of them among the lowest earners in the city.
“We’re able to help the folks that need it the most was the conclusion that we had from the data,” Abe-Koga said.
The new money Mountain View is cobbled together from about $350,000 the city expects to get in federal block grant money and about $750,000 the city saved from building affordable housing projects on time and under budget.
Along with a $100,000 check from Google for rent relief and 400 donations to the TogetherMV fund adding up to $75,000, the city’s rent relief fund adds up to nearly $1.8 million, $200,000 shy of San Jose’s fund, a city 10 times the size of Mountain View.
At $2,000 a piece, the city hopes to give rent aid to about 650 families, Abe-Koga said.
City staff have been asked by the council to explore more rent relief funding of up to a potential $1 million, taking into account the city’s future financial health. The council will make a decision on those funds on May 5.
For Abe-Koga, the quick work of city staff and other Mountain View agencies to provide relief for renters is a sign that the city is “ahead of the game.”
“We won’t be able to help everyone, and there’s always going to be someone who’s critical,” Abe-Koga said. “But in light of who we are and how big our city is, I think we’ve gone above and beyond.”
But while rent relief efforts provide some peace to tenants who would otherwise be thousands of dollars in debt, council members wondered whether the city could coordinate with landlords to provide relief to tenants that need it while not necessarily handing out checks.
That’s happening more on a case-by-case basis, officials said, with tenants often asking their landlords directly for discounts, reductions in rent or payback terms.
As for the more radical ideas circulating around the Bay Area — rent strikes, canceling rent or forgiving rent — the city simply isn’t legally allowed to mandate something like that, Abe-Koga said.
“I don’t think that is a policy that we can do,” Abe-Koga said. “We definitely don’t want to do something that puts us in legal jeopardy. If it’s clear that it’s not legally possible, I wouldn’t want go there.”
As for those advocating rent strikes, Abe-Koga said that’s not how she does business.
“I know that everyone’s in a different situation, but my hope is that folks would try first to talk to their landlord and work out a situation and collaborate rather than be combative,” Abe-Koga said. “That’s my approach to things usually that would be how I would approach things first.”