GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. — More than 8,000 people in the Triad rely on it to keep a roof over their heads.
Almost half, live in Guilford County.
The Housing Opportunities and Prevention of Evictions {HOPE} Program helps those who are struggling because of the pandemic with rent and utilities.
The federal funds that are keeping thousands housed during this global crisis are expiring soon, on December 31.
But even before then, many are facing a different problem: it's up to landlords to decide if they will even accept the program money.
"It is a voluntary program so if they decide they do not want to participate they do not have to," Haley Pfeiffer Haynes with the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency said.
But money is money, right?
Why wouldn't landlords want to help their tenants, and their own pockets?
Well, Haynes said there are some strings attached.
"One of the things we require if they accept this money is they agree not to evict the household for nonpayment of rent for the remainder of the written lease or for 90 days following the end of assistance."
There's more.
"There are other things like they cant raise the rent through the remainder of the lease or impose new fees or fines," Haynes explained. "They would have to agree to dismiss any eviction proceeding and so there could be various reasons."
Hannah Wigley lives in the Woodlake Village community in Guilford County.
The pandemic put a strain on her growing family.
"I know plenty of us who are in the same boat," Wigley said. "There's a lot of stress and anxiety."
So she applied, and qualified for the HOPE program to help pay the bills, but her landlord won't take the federal funds.
"They gave us this false hope about the HOPE program," she said. "It just makes me worried all these people are going to be without shelter, I'm hoping {my community manager} will at least come to a compromise and let people have a payment plan past January."
WFMY News 2 reached out to her housing community for comment on whether there would be some sort of compromise.
We received the following email:
We have worked very closely with our residents to assist them in their efforts to stay current with their lease obligations. We have internal programs and participate with a number of outside organizations that provide assistance to residents that cannot meet their lease obligations. Fortunately, between our internal programs and third party programs the majority of our residents who need financial assistance have been able to secure such assistance. However, certain third party programs require excessive provisions from landlords, which make participating in those programs unreasonable.
Wigley is protected under the eviction moratorium until December 31.
"So it's very important, I think, for landlords and tenants to understand even if the landlord declines to accept this funding that tenant is protected through the end of the year from eviction per Governor Cooper's Executive Order 171," Haynes stated.
More than 750 landlords statewide accept HOPE money.
The Office of Recovery and Resiliency wishes that number was higher.
"We certainly are hopeful landlords will take advantage of six months of rent payment they can receive if it's a written lease they will receive the full amount of the lease," Haynes added. "We really encourage landlords to consider this as a way of helping during the pandemic as well as helping their own bottom line."
8,480 households in the Triad have qualified for HOPE assistance.
Guilford County accounts for almost half of that: 3,725.
"It's like they're setting us up for failure," Wigley continued. "And the people struggling are the ones who have always paid on time or ahead of time and people who have been here for years."
