Moving Newark forward: La Casa de Don Pedro’s $1.4 million program helps families pay back back-rent

La Casa de Don Pedro of Newark is helping residents get debt-free through its Back Rental Assistance program. Thanks to a $1.4 million donation, La Casa is providing financial assistance to Newark working households to pay back months of unpaid rent so they can move forward from the COVID-19 crisis, debt free.

On March 19, 2020, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy issued an executive order suspending all evictions throughout the state. The “eviction moratorium” guaranteed, excluding rare circumstances, that no tenant could be removed from their home through eviction. However, the order did not prevent the accumulation of back-rent. After a year in the pandemic, the eviction moratorium is expected to end mid-June, and the state has not announced a formal plan to address residents’ inevitable debt caused by employment disruption and delinquent payments. 

Mortgage and rental payments are often the most expensive bills in a resident’s budget, and with 1.8 million New Jerseyans unemployed since the start of the pandemic, many have accumulated a large debt of back-pay with no plan on how to pay it back. 

“It’s extreme levels of stress, extreme levels of anxiety. This is already a stressful and difficult time for so many of us. We’re balancing everything from death and illness in our own families, combined with the uncertainty of the future,” said Carrie Puglisi, Director of Program and Fund Development for La Casa de Don Pedro. “And not knowing if you have a place to live and if you can stay where you are--that really has impacted our community.”

La Casa’s rental assistance program works with households in Newark, and a few communities in targeted areas, to support residents who’ve lost their jobs or have experienced lost wages due to the pandemic, and now owe back-pay on their rent. The program is geared to households who have regained steady employment and are going back to work. The program also supports undocumented households, who face the fear of unlawful eviction and police intervention, leaving them especially unprotected.

“We work with households who, since losing their jobs due to Covid, have now returned to work so they’re able to sustain their apartment and their homes, but they may have thousands of dollars over their heads in back-rent due,” Puglisi said. 

“Knowing that folks have some level of hope that they can stay where they are and we can be there to help them has offered a great deal of relief.”

Last August, the state announced a $100 million rental relief fund, but only about 8,000 out of 60,000 applicants were selected from the lottery. Another $353 million in relief funds were made available on March 22, but not for undocumented residents, who cannot access funds from the federal stimulus package or any other public resources. 

Alongside the rental assistance program, La Casa’s portfolio of  programming includes early childhood education,  youth enrichment, family counseling, adult education and employment assistance, immigration assistance, affordable homeownership, home energy conservation and assistance, and lead abatement and remediation. La Casa has also remained a satellite site for LEAD Charter School, the education arm of Newark Opportunity Youth Network (NOYN), through the pandemic. As a LEAD site, La Casa offers education and job training services to opportunity youth - 16 to 24 year olds who are not in school and not working - and helps them obtain post-secondary success.

“Our relationship with La Casa has been an incredible value add for the young people we serve,” said Robert Clark, CEO of NOYN. “Through partnerships with local organizations like La Casa, we are able to increase the community of people supporting opportunity youth. La Casa’s suite of services, including the rental assistance program, ensures that young people in Newark and their families have access to the essential resources they need to be successful.

La Casa is actively accepting applications for its rental assistance program, with each household’s debt relief determined on a case-by-case basis. La Casa is also accepting applications for its LEAD program and home energy assistance program among its other services. Interested residents can visit www.lacasanwk.org to learn more.

LEAD Charter School is now accepting applications for the 2021-22 school year. Learn more at leadcharterschool.org/enroll.