EVICTION PREVENTION EFFORTS DURING THE PANDEMIC

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for assistance reached new heights. Fortunately, the federal government passed several relief packages, starting with the CARES Act, which passed in late March, 2020. After federal funding arrived in our local area of Tucson and Pima County, the task fell on local government to quickly prop up programs to distribute assistance, one household at a time.

RENTAL ASSISTANCE WITH NONPROFIT PARTNERS

A few months after the the COVID-19 pandemic began, Community Investment Corporation (CIC) was contracted by local government partners to develop and manage a dynamic online platform that could accept applications—in whatever format was necessary during a pandemic—for rental assistance from community members who’d been negatively impacted. In a matter of weeks, by August of 2020, a platform was built with the following features:

  • Different parties, such as tenants, landlords, and County Constables, could submit a request for assistance.
  • Requests for assistance could be submitted by phone, email, online forms, and fillable pdfs. No login account was necessary to interact with the system.
  • Cases could be securely accessed by dozens of cases workers from 10+ nonprofit organizations and local government partners to assist tenants and landlords in completing their application.

The system was used by CIC and a partnership of Tucson and Pima County’s best nonprofits to administer federal rental assistance from August of 2020 to May of 2022. During this time period, $64,221,791 in rental and utility assistance was delivered to over 12,300 households in Tucson and Pima County. For the latest information on funding distributed by CIC and its partners, please refer to the CIC Website.  

CIC engaged 10 of the community’s best and most recognized social service agencies to assist in the project. This program would not have been possible without the highly skilled labor and heartfelt participation of the below nonprofit organizations.

NONPROFIT PARTNERS