Not one dollar of state rent-relief money has arrived in SF

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

Hundreds of millions in federal funding is available — but tenants aren’t getting it.

Governor Gavin Newsom is talking about spending $12 billion on housing for homeless people and rent relief for tenants. It’s a great picture.

But in reality, the existing state program to help tenants who can’t pay rent because of the pandemic has not sent a single check for a single dollar to a single tenant or landlord in San Francisco, public records show.

It’s not much better on a statewide basis: Of the $403 million requested by landlords and tenants, only $4 million – that’s one percent – has actually been paid out.

“It’s just unacceptable,” Molly Goldberg, staff director for the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition, told me. “The state of the need is huge.”

The story is a complex issue of federal, state, and local agencies, but the bottom line is simple:

California is leaving vast sums of federal money on the table because Newsom’s administration can’t seem to get it together to send the money where it’s needed…(more)

Too much talk and not enough positive action out of Sacramento. What is the hold up? Who are what is to blame?