The Fredericksburg Regional Continuum of Care is requesting proposals through August 24.
The Fredericksburg Regional Continuum of Care is looking to establish an eviction reduction program that would provide financial and court navigation services to at-risk families in the Fredericksburg area.
The CoC, which coordinates the local homeless response system, is seeking proposals from organizations to apply for and manage funds available through the Virginia Evictions Reduction Pilot program, which is overseen by the state Department of Housing and Community Development.
Established by the General Assembly during a special session in 2020, the program’s purpose is to create “a safety-net within the community … to ensure households have early access to resources to stabilize their housing situations.”
Up to $6.1 million in funding is available in two-year cycles to support local initiatives to prevent and divert evictions. A new round of funding for localities became available this month.
According to the CoC’s request for proposals, released last week, a local eviction reduction program would include:
- Flexible financial assistance and stabilization support services available both before and after a pay or quit notice is filed.
- A court navigation program to increase communication between judges, eviction prevention and diversion staff, and tenants.
- Data-driven, proactive outreach initiatives to reach households at risk of eviction.
VERP funding has supported such programs in the City of Norfolk, the Thomas Jefferson Planning District (City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County), the cities of Chesapeake and Portsmouth, the City of Richmond, and others.
According to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, Virginia has an eviction filing rate of 13%—representing the number of filings per 100 renter households in the past 12 months. That’s the highest rate of the 10 states tracked regularly by Eviction Lab.
Richmond has an eviction filing rate of 23%, the second highest of the 34 cities tracked. The highest is 25% in Greenville, South Carolina.
The majority of people threatened with eviction are women, especially women of color. According to Eviction Lab, 58% of people facing evictions in the last year were women.
Proposals for the regional eviction reduction program are due to the Fredericksburg CoC by 5 p.m. on August 26.
Read the Advance’s previous coverage of local evictions here.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
Email Adele
