Pierce County announces $6 million eviction prevention program. Is it enough?
Pierce County is awarding more than $6 million to a Tacoma-based service provider to administer an eviction-prevention program for the next two years. The announcement of the contract comes as the region recently recorded one of the highest eviction rates in the state.
On April 11, Pierce County Human Services announced it would award approximately $6.3 million to the Multicultural Child and Family Hope Center (MCFHC) for administering the Eviction Prevention Program, starting this summer.
According to the county, the Eviction Prevention Program has a primary focus of stopping evictions by paying rental debt one time for low-income households. Eligible participants are selected through a monthly lottery after submitting an application online.
In addition to paying overdue rent to keep residents housed, the county says the program provides case-management services that support households in need. The program also supports legal-aid events around the county.
Human Services spokesperson Kari Moore told The News Tribune the department held a competitive procurement process and MCFHC received the highest score from evaluators.
'They have consistently been a high performing provider and as a By and For Organization, they have experience supporting marginalized populations,' she wrote in an email to The News Tribune.
According to the county, MCFHC is an organization known for providing high quality services to marginalized populations and has 'exceeded contract expectations' for households served.
MCFHC has operated community programs, which include childcare services, mental health services, homeless street outreach and community diaper banks among others.
'Currently, 97% of the people who received services over the last year remain in their homes, with only 3% of clients returning to homelessness,' the county said of MCFHC's previous housing stability programs.
Moore said funding for the Eviction Prevention Program is made possible through the Washington State Department of Commerce's Consolidated Homeless Grant, which provides resources to fund homeless crisis response systems.
Although this is a new program contracted with a new provider, the county says its capacity for eviction-prevention services will remain the same as the previous two years.
Pierce County has one of the highest eviction rates in the state, according to recently released data from the past year.
According to the most recent report from the Eviction Research Network, a collaborative project through which academic researchers collect and study eviction and housing-market data, there were 3,561 evictions filed in Pierce County between September 2023 and August 2024.
With more than 121,000 rental households in that period of time, Pierce County has the second highest number of rental households in Washington behind King County, which had just over 400,000.
Pierce County has a higher rate of evictions than King County.
According to the data from the Eviction Research Network, there were 1.8 evictions in King County for every 100 rental households between September 2023 and August 2024, while Pierce County had 2.9 — the third highest eviction rate of any county in the state.
Moore reported the county received $10.3 million in requests for rental assistance and eviction prevention through 2024 and more than $6,691,000 had been paid to cover rent and utilities.
Pierce County has a lottery on the second Friday of the month where eligible households are chosen for assistance. Those households are then referred to organizations contracted by the county to administer assistance the next week. Landlords are paid directly by the organizations.
Households not selected are notified and sent additional resources to apply for and they can reapply six months from their last application review.
Near the end of 2024, Moore told The News Tribune more than 1,700 individual households had applied for services, met basic eligibility criteria but were not selected into the program.
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