City vows to get rental assistance program set up after long delays 

St. Louis Alderwoman Shameem Clark Hubbard says that someone might need to lose their job after a program created a year and a half ago to help people in need with a month’s rent still has not launched.

The Board of Aldermen passed legislation creating the Impact Tenants fund in April 2024, providing a month’s rent for renters who get evicted because a landlord failed to keep their building up to code. The program was expanded after the May 16 tornado to include people displaced by “acts of God.”

Clark Hubbard sponsored the initial bill setting up the fund; a year later, her ward was hit as hard as any in the city by the tornado. Her frustration over the program’s slow launch was palpable at a press conference Friday. “It’s not just staffing. We might need to do some re-staffing,” she said. 

But determining where the blame belongs is not simple. 

After the Board of Aldermen passed the bill creating the fund in 2024, the program was housed in the city’s Department of Human Services and a contract was awarded to nonprofit Employment Connections to administer it. Employment Connections is an organization that primarily focuses on connecting people to jobs, though they previously won a contract with the city to help administer the violence prevention program Cure Violence. (Employment Connections CEO Sal Martinez also at one point co-owned an all-you-can-drink bar with Recorder of Deeds Michael Butler.) 

Martinez’s group may have been an unlikely choice for this particular contract, though they seem to have done their part. Alderman Michael Browning, who drew attention to the fund at an aldermanic committee hearing last week, said at that hearing that Employment Connections had a website set up to take applications, but that it wasn’t currently accepting them. “My chief concern is that these people get the funds they need,” he said. 

Alderman Rasheen Aldridge has a bill to infuse the program with an additional $1 million from the city’s Rams settlement funds, which he says should finally get the program up and running. His bill is expected to pass Friday.

He tells SLM that the program’s delays can be explained by two different snags—one before the tornado and one afterward.

Shortly after the board voted to approve the program, $100,000 of American Rescue Plan money was allocated to it, with 10 percent of that dedicated to covering administrative costs. “We knew that wasn’t going to be enough,” Aldridge said, but the plan had been for the account to be funded by approximately $180,000 worth of building code violation fines redirected from the city’s general revenue fund to the one set up to help tenants. But the details proved complicated, and the city’s Department of Human Services never set up the account allowing funds to be transferred in, as department director Adam Pearson acknowledged at last week’s hearing.

Pearson has been in his current role since April 2023. He told the aldermen, “From my department’s perspective, I’ll take full responsibility for not pushing on that as hard as I could have.” 

The second delay came after the tornado, when language was added to the fund enabling applicants who’d been displaced by “acts of god.” The Board of Aldermen approved $30 million from the Rams lawsuit settlement interest to use on tornado recovery but, when it came to the tenants fund, the city was leery of administering funds in a manner that could duplicate what FEMA was doing—and potentially cause those federal funds to be pulled back. 

Aldridge said that the snags have now been ironed out. At the aldermanic hearing last week, both Aldridge and Pearson said that they planned for the fund to be up and running in two weeks. 

Even then, people displaced by the tornado may find it difficult to apply: Pearson said the applicants will need to print out the two-page application and send it in paper form to Employment Connections.  

The Building Division will then verify the applicant was in a property damaged by the tornado or in a unit that is otherwise not fit for habitation, and Employment Connection will recommend applicants who meet the criteria. The fund allows for one month’s fair market rent, between about $950 and $1,200, depending on the size of the unit. 

Said Pearson: “At this point I don’t know if I could speak to how rapidly that money would go out, but I’m committed to making sure that money is out as quickly as possible as soon as somebody is verified.” 

The program’s slow rollout has triggered questions about whether the Board of Aldermen’s ambitions have outstripped the city’s ability to execute. Asked why programs like this are created by the board only to languish on the administrative side, Aldermanic President Megan Green said at a Friday press conference the issue was low staffing in city departments.  “The perpetual challenge is staffing, quite honestly. I don’t think it’s anything other than that.” She added that she hoped that recently announced raises for many city workers would help ameliorate staffing issues.

However, Clark Hubbard said Monday that the blame for the program’s slow launch extended beyond low staffing. 

“I am so frustrated with people that are in a position that don’t even have a heart to make these decisions or [who] are dealing with some analysis paralysis,” she said. She still wants to know more about how things went wrong before she calls anyone out. But, she added, “If it was one person’s job and they didn’t do it, then that person absolutely should be held accountable.”