July 2021

Child Tax Credit

The State of Rhode Island Housing Resources Commission, Office of Community Development has asked RIHousing to reach out to you regarding the Child Tax Credit. The Child Tax Credit provides eligible families with a monthly benefit.

Here is a link to more information >

Tenants with children should know that the benefit will not impact their rent.

Click here to learn more >

Please share this very important information with your tenants. Thank you very much for your assistance in getting the word out!

Vaccination Events

Would you like to reach out to a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) for help with a community vaccination event?

Find help with HUD’s interactive mapping tool. This mapping tool can help you:

• Locate the FQHCs in and near your community
• Identify Public Housing and Multifamily properties within FQHC service areas
• Focus on priority areas with 20% of HUD-assisted residents 8+ miles away
• Leverage HUD place-based programs to better connect with FQHCs

You can host multiple events – including an event for a select group of residents who have not been vaccinated yet.

Looking to partner with a non-FQHC vaccine provider? For help, go to Vaccines.gov (Spanish: vacunas.gov), which features 50,000 vaccination sites across the country, including primary care physicians, federal pharmacy partners, state sites, and FEMA sites. Locations are updated daily.

Pet Deposits

Effective July 1, 2021, RIHousing is no longer allowing sites to collect pet deposits from tenants. We ask that property owners/managers stop collection of these deposits and return any previously collected pet deposits to tenants. RIHousing does not view pet deposits as allowable per Rhode Island law on security deposits:

-excerpt from The Rhode Island Landlord-Tenant Handbook.

As Section 8 security deposits are equal to one month’s rent, a pet deposit would exceed this amount and fail to be in compliance with state law.

Please note the following:

• Sites must stop collecting pet deposits;
• Sites will need to update any house rules and pet rules to match this change;
• Any site that has collected pet deposits previously must return them to tenants immediately
• Owners/managers must offer a return of pet deposits as cash; can only apply deposits to a tenant’s rent or rental arrearage if tenant is first given the option to receive it as cash and the resident has opted to have it applied to rent.
  • Note: please retain any communication with residents on this issue, including amount of pet deposit refunded (or applied toward rental/rental arrearage) and the recipient. You may be asked to furnish this information during an audit.
• Sites that continue to collect pet deposits will be written up during management and occupancy reviews

‣ Releases & Reminders

• The Biden administration announced on June 24, 2021 that it will extend the federal eviction moratorium issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through July 31, 2021.
  
  
• Property providers that use Yardi, Entrata or RealPage can now save time by linking their properties listed on HousingSearchRI.org to automatically sync property updates. Simply log in to your account on Yardi, Entrata, or RealPage and connect to Emphasys/Socialserve.com.

We'd love to hear from you!

We hope you've found this edition of Property Matters to be helpful to you and your work. If you have thoughts or suggestions for this e-newsletter, please share with us at pbca_eblast@rihousing.com.