More people are accessing Hamilton's COVID-era rent bank, city says

The city of Hamilton is extending its COVID-era rent bank after a recent rush of people struggling to pay their rent.

Edward John, director of housing, says the city has seen a rise in applications to the Rent Ready program, an emergency rent bank the city implemented in December to help people facing evictions during the pandemic.

The $500,000 the city allocated for that program is almost gone, John told city council at a meeting Wednesday. Now the city will allocate $1 million in unspent money from the Housing Stability Benefit program to extend the rent bank until the end of the year.

So far, 272 households have used the Rent Ready fund, John said. In the last month, there's been such an increase that council had to make an emergency decision Wednesday.

"We do not want to pause this program," John said. A lot of recent applicants are renting from private landlords, he said, and "we want to make sure we safeguard people's tenancy."

"We know that [demand] is still high and that it is absolutely, incredibly a need right now."

For months, the pandemic inspired the province to give tenants a grace period from evictions, but that expired in June with the end of Ontario's stay-at-home order. Some tenant advocates said then that the government needed to extend the ban.