But tenants who can't pay are still wracking up unpaid rent and could face eviction someday if they can't pay it back. State and national eviction moratoriums instituted during the pandemic protect tenants from losing their homes due to nonpayment alone. Dean said many of HNN Communities' tenants are considered low income and lost jobs - and the company is losing $1.5 million a month because hundreds of tenants are unable to pay rent. "That's putting us in a position where we can adjust criteria and feel more comfortable as a landlord that if something happens, for whatever reason, they're going to step in and help make that situation whole for us," Dean said. That's allowed landlords to rent to people who would have previously been deemed too risky, said Alison Dean, director of operations and strategy for HNN Communities, a company that is landlord to an estimated 50,000 or 60,000 people in King County. The program offers to reimburse landlords up to $5,000 for damage to an apartment, covers up to three months' rent if a tenant isn't able to pay and ensures caseworkers check in on tenants regularly. Housing Connector provides assurances that allow landlords to accept tenants who might not otherwise pass a background check. Factors like a criminal record, a past eviction or a certain income to rent ratio could cause someone to fail a background check, even if they made enough money to pay rent.Īnd so they'd stay homeless, and apartments would sit vacant. Kelmendi later worked for the Seattle Housing Authority and saw people running into the same barriers as they tried to escape homelessness. "We didn't have a credit score or credit history." "Like many immigrants and refugees, we didn't have access to a lot of funds," Kelmendi said. He said background checks made it difficult for the family to find housing. Kelmendi's idea for Housing Connector came from his own family's experiences as refugees from Kosovo who arrived in the United States in 1999. The latest episode tells the stories of people brought to the brink of eviction by the pandemic, supported by moratoriums on evictions that could expire in the near future. It's an excerpt from KNKX's podcast Transmission, chronicling the pandemic in the Pacific Northwest.
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