With the federal eviction moratorium ending on Saturday, concern is growing around the rental debt in the state of Mississippi.
New data published by the New York Times estimates that 23.2% of renters in Hinds County owe some amount of back rent. Most counties in Mississippi are in a similar position.
To address this rental shortfall, the December 2020 COVID-19 stimulus bill provided $25 billion for rental assistance across the country, of which Mississippi received $186 million (Harrison and Hinds counties each received an additional $7 million). The statewide program, Rental Assistance for Mississippians (RAMP), is being administered by the Mississippi Home Corporation.
Mississippi Today reported last month that RAMP had distributed just $3 million or 1.7% of its allotment. One month later, they more than tripled that number to $11.6 million, or 6.2% of the total allotment.
Mississippi Home Corporation Director Scott Spivey attributed this increased disbursement to a streamlining of the application process and efforts to increase awareness of the program.
While this progress has provided assistance to more families, Sara Miller of the Hope Policy Institute pointed out that “most of those funds have remained unspent.” Miller continued, “We’re concerned because of the mismatch, all of those funds remain available and yet so many people haven’t been able to access them and will be at risk of eviction in a couple of days.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled at the end of June that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had exceeded its authority in extending the moratorium repeatedly, placing the onus on Congress to provide further extensions. President Joe Biden asked Congress on Thursday to extend the moratorium, but it is unlikely action will be taken before the current moratorium expires.
While the eviction moratorium has provided assistance to some tenants, evictions have never stopped during the pandemic. According to the Hope Policy Institute, around 300 evictions were filed in Hinds county just this month.
The moratorium could only provide protection to those who knew to ask for it, with tenants having to file an eviction protection declaration with their landlord to be eligible. Miller also pointed out that the moratorium didn’t necessarily cover everyone who could be at risk of eviction. Despite this, she still felt that extending the moratorium would be beneficial for tenants to “provide some protection from a looming crisis of evictions.”
“We’re hoping that the (RAMP) program administrators, court staff, and community organizations can work together to have an outreach process for people that are in immediate risk, and a path for court staff to acknowledge when people have applied for rental assistance and are just waiting on payment,” Miller said.
One of the key ways to get RAMP funds into the hands of tenants is by partnering with local organizations that can more easily pinpoint needs, according to Miller. The Home Corporation has made strides in pursuing this avenue, sharing a map on the RAMP website that shows local nonprofits that have agreed to help tenants submit applications and collect proper documentation.
“Evictions have far-reaching effects on our communities beyond just the people directly affected — who would carry deep scars for a long time from the process and would be affected in their ability to get housing in the future — but we also know it’s not good for the whole community to have so many folks evicted,” Miller said. “The magnitude of the problem is greater than we can comprehend.”
To apply for rental assistance through the RAMP program, visit ms-ramp.com. If you live in Harrison County, you may also contact the Open Doors Homeless Coalition at 228-604-8011. For rental assistance in Hinds County, visit hindsrentalaid.com or call 601-514-0137.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.