Rental-assistance program allows woman to stay in her home

Daitra Small has always been a hard-working woman. She had a long career with the Tucson Unified School District before multiple sclerosis eventually took away her ability to walk. She now gets around on a small scooter.

Little did she know that the scooter would one day almost lead to her eviction from her one-bedroom apartment. Fortunately for Small, the joint Pima County and city of Tucson eviction prevention, rental assistance and utility relief program was able to lend a helping hand and is putting her back on her feet financially.

Like anything mechanical, a scooter will eventually require maintenance or replacement. When that situation recently arrived for Small, however, she was short on money and had to make a hard choice — she could pay for a replacement scooter or she could pay the rent.
She chose the scooter. “These are my legs,” she said. “I need this. I can’t do anything without it.” Soon after making that decision, however, she found a five-day notice on her apartment door to vacate the premises or be evicted.

In Small’s case, the program paid for one month of back rent, her current month’s rent and also one month of future rent. The program also was able to help Small with some overdue utility bills.

“I’ve never had anyone help me with anything like this,” she said. “I was so grateful to hear that I was eligible for assistance. What a relief that was! “The rental assistance and utility help are going to get me back to where I need to be financially.”
The rental-assistance program here and those around the country are meant to help people who were affected financially by the pandemic.
The program that helped Small is funded with federal dollars that were awarded to Pima County and Tucson and is administered by the County’s Community Action Agency and the local Community Investment Corporation and its nonprofit partners.

“The whole process was fairly easy,” Small said. “I felt like I had a personal case manager. He worked on my case. He stayed in contact with me. He emailed me. He called me. He did everything. We called each other. He told me what to do. I mean, he was phenomenal.”
According to the Eviction Prevention Program’s online dashboard at TucsonPimaEP.com, Small’s is one of more than 7,860 cases that have been processed or submitted for payment since the program launched in March. Altogether, those cases account for more than $21 million in rental assistance that has been paid out or committed.

As of November 2021, about 1,626 cases were being processed and nearly 5,000 more were in the queue. The good news for tenants and landlords is that there should be plenty of money available to handle all the potential cases. In the first round of the federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program, or ERAP 1, Pima County and Tucson received close to $32 million in funding. For ERAP 2, the two governments received a combined $25 million.

Meanwhile, Small is spreading the word among her friends who have been economically affected by COVID-19 to seek rental assistance if they need it. She’s recommended the program to four people, so far.

“People need to use this program,” she said. “They should try to get help before this money goes away.”