From hotels to housing: hurricane evacuees get more time to apply for rental assistance

SEATTLE—December 17, 2005—Thankfully, Hurricane Katrina victims recently received a bit of good news for the holidays. They have at least another three weeks before they have to move out of the hotels that have served as temporary housing for the past few months.

After the announcement from FEMA that evacuees have at least until January 7 to move from their hotels, Seattle Housing Authority waited anxiously to hear if the deadline for securing rental assistance would be extended as well.

The program, funded by FEMA through the Washington State Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development (CTED), allows Seattle Housing to enter into contracts with private landlords to pay rent on behalf of victims.

This allows evacuees to move out of hotels into more stable housing—an apartment or house where they can have a phone, a mailing address, and a place to call home as they piece together a new life in Seattle.

On December 14, Seattle Housing got word that the December 15 deadline to secure rental assistance has also been extended to January 7.

However, the Housing Authority stressed the need for families who want to take advantage of the program to contact them as soon as possible.

“The January 7 deadline is the date that leases and contracts with landlords must be signed and in our hands, so families need to factor in the time to choose an apartment, apply with the landlords, and sign the lease,” said Lisa Cipollone, director of rental assistance programs at SHA.

“Ideally, people who want to take advantage of this program should contact us right away to get the ball rolling, especially with the holidays coming up,” she advised.

So far, Seattle Housing has helped more than 125 families secure housing assistance. Fifty of those households live in SHA-owned workforce housing, and the rest moved into apartments owned by private landlords, through the rental assistance program for disaster victims. 

“Landlords were extremely responsive to the agency’s request for participation in this new program,” said Gerry Nelson, contracts coordinator at SHA who has taken on managing the contracts for this program. “Over 150 landlords have expressed interest in participating, which equals nearly 500 potential units for families to choose from.”

There are more than 120 families working through the process right now to move into those units.

“We hope that more families who need assistance will contact us before the deadline,” said Cipollone. “We have left notices at the hotels where evacuees are staying with information about the program and we also spoke to more than 50 families at the recent Disaster Victim Housing and Services Fair at the Convention Center.”