CACF Funds Make June Rental Assistance Possible

Thanks to $101,000 from the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation, 290 households in Piedmont Housing Alliance communities will receive rental assistance in June.

The rental assistance specifically impacts three groups of residents – Friendship Court households, households that are part of our Eviction Prevention Program (EPP) and residents who pay more than 30% of their income in rent.

Friendship Court Households

Many families and individuals living in Friendship Court have seen reductions in income due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic causing closures and high levels of unemployment. All Friendship Court residents will have their full rent covered in June thanks to this one-time funding from CACF.

EPP Participants and Households Paying More Than 30% of Income in Rent

Households in Piedmont Housing Alliance’s EPP program throughout our entire portfolio will also receive rental assistance. This is a total of ___ households.

Residents across our portfolio paying 30% or more of their income in rent will also receive assistance in June. 

Sunshine Mathon, our Executive Director, broke down how affordable housing residents still end up paying 30% of their incomes in rent, “While those residents with subsidized rental assistance (Section 8, housing vouchers, CSRAP, etc.) will always pay 30% of their income towards rent, most residents in the broader Charlottesville community (including almost half of Piedmont Housing’s residents) pay fixed rents, regardless of their income. Of course, Piedmont Housing Alliance always works to ensure that rent payments align with residents’ incomes, but this is not always possible – the demand for deeply affordable housing far outstrips available supply in the region.  As such, almost one-fifth of the households we serve (133 out of 604) pay more than 30% of their income towards rent – with the large majority of these households being seniors on fixed incomes.” 

The rental assistance offered in June is just the latest step in aiding members of our communities as they navigate financial uncertainty due to COVID-19. Earlier, households were offered the opportunity to receive one-time payments from our Emergency Assistance Fund. We also previously suspended evictions and have implemented new bi-weekly food distribution at our senior living communities.