Redline Washington State Rental Agreement with airSlate SignNow

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funding for rent assistance is here and you could receive up to 12 months in completely paid rent and utilities under this program now this is part of the latest stimulus bill that was passed in december that included a massive section for rent forgiveness and rent payments for landlords and for renters to the tune of 25 billion now the funding for this program has begun arriving to states and counties and most areas should be completely funded by january 27th now i wasn't planning on making this video because i thought it would be pretty niche and i figured it'd be super simple to apply and it wouldn't merit a video on itself but after looking into this a bit i was so wrong to put it lightly this program is overly complicated so i decided you know what i'm going to do my part here i spent my entire sunday researching this the best methods as as to how exactly to apply i mean my cats and my girlfriend aren't too happy that i spent my whole sunday working on this but i decided i just needed to put together the best possible comprehensive guide on rental assistance so i can cover what it is who can apply and most importantly the easiest ways to apply so jumping right in there is a lot of context that i need to give here first so just starting with rent moratoriums because this matters the moratorium is currently extended through the end of march the stimulus bill first made it through the end of january and then biden signed an executive order extending that through the end of march just a little fun fact here that i learned the cdc's national moratorium on rents is based on an old public health law from 1944 used to curb the spread of pandemics essentially the thought process is you want people to not be homeless because the more homeless people there are there's a much higher risk of just getting everyone sick so it kind of makes sense so red moratoriums are kind of always a double-edged sword where we need less homeless people especially people who lost their jobs due to circumstances that are out of their control but landlords still need to make money if landlords aren't making any money we're going to deal with even more problems in the long term as they foreclose on properties or maybe go bankrupt their selves that just will add to the mess if they're not receiving any money now the latest stimulus bill sets aside 25 billion dollars to be dispersed among states within quote 30 days well many states have begun receiving these funds by january 20th and the rest will have the funding soon if you look at a lot of state websites even now as of the recording of this they might say that funding has run out that's probably just because their systems haven't been updated yet because this funding is literally arriving as we speak so if you look at your state website and you don't see anything you see and notice that funding isn't as has run out don't give up trust me so before we get into how to apply there are some major conditions that you need to meet in order to qualify for these funds first off household income cannot exceed 80 percent of the median income for the area in which you live now the easiest way that i've found to get this data is by visiting censusreporter.org so i'm just going to show you an example real quick um let's think of a city let's go with boulder colorado so you type in your city or your metro area and then you're just going to scroll down and you want to look at median household income and you want to be 80 of that in order to qualify so you're just going to take whatever your household income is divided by the median household income and you want that 0.8 or lower all right now another qualification that you need is at least one member of the household must be able to demonstrate a risk of becoming homeless without assistance now some ways to certify this they include but they're not limited to getting an eviction notice getting a rent due notice which is probably the easiest one the rent do notice getting a past due utility notice which would also be fairly easy to get or there are unsafe or unhealthy living conditions now there there may be other options but those are kind of the big ones and then finally one member of the household must qualify for unemployment benefits or has experienced financial hardship directly or indirectly due to the covid pandemic and for that one you just need to certify it priority with these programs this is also really important because funding may run out and also this is first come first serve that's why you want to get this information and then apply as soon as possible as long as you hit all the criteria but the very first people who will receive priority for these programs are homes who do not exceed 50 of the area median family income so again just your median family income divided by the area median family income you want that to be 0.5 or lower to get the absolute priority but in order to apply you want that to be 0.8 or 80 so if you fall under all those conditions you're going to need to provide just a little bit of paperwork that states that you meet the following five requirements as well so there's a form that you need to fill out it's really simple you just certify a few things i'll have this linked in the description just a declaration form and then i would recommend you have to give one of these copies to your landlord certifying this and if you're a landlord you can help your renter to fill this out and also i would just recommend doing a second one and saving it just in case you need to send it to whatever state or local government agency that will be running the rent assistance program so this is the form you're just certifying these five things that you've used your best efforts to obtain all available government assistance for rent or housing you expect to earn no more than 99 000 in annual income for the 2020 2021 year you're unable to pay full rent or make full housing payments due to substantial loss of household income loss of compensatable hours or of work or wages layoffs extraordinary out-of-pocket medical expenses and you are using your best efforts to make a timely partial rent payments that are as close to the full payment as you can possibly make and if you're evicted you would likely become homeless and of course we don't want this because it spreads the pandemic and we want fewer homeless people and you also understand that you must still pay your rent and it says here that the temporary halt of an eviction is january 31st that's just not updated yet that should be march the end of march and you just sign that give one of these to your landlord and then save another one just in case your state agency needs it as well and then you should be good to go if you hit all the criteria now the next question is how exactly do i get this rental assistance and i i really wish that there were easier methods to this but let me explain two methods that i come up that i came up with that after hours of research this is the the best i think that there's going to be because funding for this goes to individual states and counties the states and counties are the ones who are paying this out to individuals and because of this every state and county has their own way of dispersing funds some of them are really good they might have their own portal that's just login create an account and then you can apply for this funding some are not so user friendly and everyone is different so so there's hundreds and hundreds of these portals here's the best methods the first one i found this pdf that is extremely helpful or this website it's nolo.com i'll have this linked in the description it goes through all of the every single state and district and gives the rent assistance and rent information programs for each state now some of them do a really good job of this i clicked on a few of them here is arkansas they have a site dedicated for this i think indiana also had a site dedicated for this here's an example where it says they're not accepting applications at this time so they probably haven't received funding yet for the december stimulus bill but again do not let this discourage you because funding is coming okay now going back to this form like i said not all states have a great way to apply and here is the method to get around this now first what you're going to do is grab your phone and you're going to call 2-1-1 and now that should direct you to some kind of rent assistance program if that doesn't work then you're going to try 3-1-1 but after doing some research two on one seems like it's gonna be the case for most people and i'm gonna do just a dry run here just so you can see how simple it is and this will direct you to whatever your state's directory is automatically so thank you for calling 211 arizona for english press one gracias you have reached 211 arizona if this is a behavioral health crisis please hang up and dial 602 to if you are 65 or older and would like to be connected to the covid19 vaccine scheduling lines also vaccine information for covid19 and the covid19 vaccine support line press six for assistance with housing including emergency shelter and rental assistance press one for assistance with utility for shelter and then from there you're just directed to rent assistance programs and there you go you'll be connected at least you'll you'll know where to go for your individual state so start with two one one if the information isn't there try dialing three one one and that's the best best methods that i found now an important note is these funds will be paid directly to your landlords or utility companies whoever you owe money to but just because you're not actually the one seeing these funds in your bank account doesn't mean you shouldn't apply even though it takes a little bit of effort it might be a little bit confusing but trust me you want these funds even if it's not going in your bank account because at some point these moratoriums will end and you don't want to be stuck with a year's worth of rent and utility payments that you have to somehow pay back and also a note for landlords property owners can assist renters to apply for this program so if you understand this program you can go to your renter and help them apply and also you can do it yourself but you have to notify the renter that you will be applying for this program on their behalf so that's huge as well now just in summary if you hit all the criteria for rental assistance first visit the site that i have linked in the description that goes over all the various assistance programs for each state if your state doesn't have a dedicated portal for rent assistance then start by calling 2-1-1 if that doesn't get you to a rent assistance portal dial 311. one of those options will absolutely work for you and that's going to do it so check out also the link in my description for weeble where if you want just a small little stimulus you can consider it if you make an account with weeble you deposit a hundred dollars they'll send you four free stocks you'll get between on average 15 to about 50 dollars in free stocks just for making an account and depositing 100 you don't have to spend 100 so that's going to do it for today i would like to thank you for watching and i hope you have a profitable day