Philly’s Eviction Diversion Program will once again offer rental assistance

Landlords and tenants participating in Philadelphia’s Eviction Diversion Program will once again be able to access rental assistance to cover past-due rent, officials announced Tuesday.

Rental assistance that landlords and tenants had relied on through the program to pay past-due rent had dried up. The amounts tenants owed in back rent are higher now than before the pandemic. Lack of funding has made negotiating agreements between tenants and landlords more difficult.

In a new financial assistance program, the city plans to give one-time payments to landlords to cover the total amount of back rent a tenant owes plus one month’s rent. Landlords and tenants must submit all requested information and make reasonable efforts to complete the diversion program, the city said.

City officials said Wednesday that eligible households cannot make more than 80% of the area median income, or $75,900 for a household of three. The program will cover up to $3,000 of eligible households’ back rent. But the Eviction Lab at Princeton University found that in December, landlords claimed tenants owed a median of $4,600.

The city has allocated $30 million to this new component of the diversion program.

The city’s separate rental assistance program, PHLRentAssist, closed to new applications last January. As of January 2023, the program had distributed all its remaining funds, according to the city.

More than 46,500 households received almost $300 million in rental assistance through local, state, and federal funds for emergency pandemic relief between May 2020 and January 2023, according to the city.

Landlords are required to participate in the diversion program, which includes mediation, before filing for eviction in court in most cases. The intent is to prevent tenants from receiving an eviction filing, which makes finding future, high-quality housing more difficult. The diversion program also reduces the municipal court’s caseload and connects landlords and tenants with resources.

More than 4,000 pairs of landlords and tenants have participated in various versions of the Eviction Diversion Program since it launched in 2020, according to city officials. Almost three-quarters of participants have reached agreements that kept them in their homes, according to the city.

To be eligible for the latest rental assistance component of the program, tenants must attend scheduled mediation sessions and submit requested materials for funds within five days.

Landlords must apply for rental assistance within five days of the approval of their diversion program application.

For more information on the Eviction Diversion Program, tenants and landlords can call the program’s tenant hotline at 215-523-9501. For information about financial assistance, they can visit https://eviction-diversion.phila.gov/.

This story has been updated to include additional eligibility criteria.