The Virginia Rent Relief Program, a statewide system that distributed federal pandemic funds to prevent evictions, is closing its online portal to new applications on Sunday, May 15 at 11:59 p.m.

Applications for relief filed by tenants or by their landlords will still be accepted up until that deadline (landlords must apply for rent relief on behalf of their tenants before beginning eviction proceedings, and they must wait 45 days after the application is submitted before they evict people).

Tenants whose finances have been negatively impacted by the coronavirus pandemic — at any time between April 1, 2020 and now — and who make 80% or less of local area median income are eligible (in the D.C. Metro region, less than $63,000 for a single person and less than $90,000 for a family of four).

There is a cap on covering extremely high rents with the fund. Tenants whose rent is at or below 150% fair market rent may apply. For people whose rent prices are above that threshold, the fund will pay up to the 150% market rate value, as long as the landlord agrees not to evict the tenant. (Fair market rent varies by zip code in the D.C. region, but is usually close to $2,000 for a one bedroom.)

Financial impacts that qualify people for help include loss of income — like the loss of a job, the closure of a business, a reduction in hours worked, or a decrease in child support — or an increase in expenses, including child care costs, medical expenses, or food or utility costs.

For people who qualify, the program can pay past due rent since April 1, 2020, the current month’s rent, and three months of future rent. Wait times for assistance can vary. Some report short turnarounds for checks. Others are frustrated with a switch to a new online application system that they believe is slowing the process down.

Fairfax County residents are not eligible for the statewide program. The county — which is Virginia’s largest by population — began accepting its federal emergency rental assistance funding directly in 2021, and is currently administering its own rental relief program. The qualifications for the Fairfax version are the same as for the statewide program. There is not yet an end date for the Fairfax program, according to a spokesperson for the county’s Neighborhood and Community Services department.

With the application deadline approaching, program administrators are prioritizing support for households earning less than 50% of the area median income, as well as for households with people who have not been employed for 90 days before they apply. Remaining applications are being reviewed based on the order they’re received, according to the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, which administers the program.

The closure of the online application for relief is “due to the limited funding available and a recent surge in applications submitted,” according to an FAQ about the deadline on the department’s website.

“DHCD has seen an increase in applications submitted, as well as an increase in the average payment amount to households,” a spokesperson for the department told WAMU/DCist in an emailed statement. “These factors, in addition to the limited funding, were used in the calculation to close the portal on May 15.”

Some advocates are concerned the deadline could contribute to a surge in new evictions in July. Currently, landlords are required to wait 45 days after a tenant submits a rental relief application before beginning eviction proceedings, a date that would land around July 1 for applicants who apply just before the deadline.

Other pandemic eviction protections expire on July 1, too. On that date, landlords will no longer need to provide an option for a rent payment plan or give tenants information about rental assistance, and they will only be required to provide 5 days of notice to tenants to pay or face eviction, down from 14 days during the pandemic.

If that happens, the burden will fall on local service providers, says Michelle Krocker, the executive director of the Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance.

“They are gearing up now to be ready if a potential eviction crisis does hit,” she says.

The Virginia Rent Relief Program was started in June 2020, and has received a total of $1 billion from federal CARES Act and Emergency Rental Assistance funds and from the Virginia Housing Trust Fund.

Through March 2022, the program sent out a total of $713 million in aid: 141,330 separate payments to 104,990 households across Virginia, according to statistics from the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development.

Fairfax County’s program, meanwhile, started last year and has received two payments of federal assistance, totaling nearly $70 million. As of May 4, the county had disbursed about $50 million to renters in need.

Early on, Krocker says the statewide program focused on serving low-income people and communities of color, who were especially hard hit by the public health crisis and the economic slowdown that came with it.

“They’ve worked with local organizations and regions to help understand through data where the hotspots are in each jurisdiction — where do we see perhaps a spike in evictions, where information is needed for those tenants who are perhaps unaware of this program because of language barriers or because of technology issues,” she says.

According to January 2022 figures, over 79% of people who received funds had incomes below 30% of the area median income, and over 42% had young children at home. Black households made up 60% of the recipients, and 10% of households were Hispanic or Latino.

Overall, Krocker believes the program was a success, in that it distributed aid money reasonably quickly and efficiently. In September 2021, Virginia led the entire country in getting federal support to prevent evictions out to people who needed it.

That was crucial in Northern Virginia, where tenants were already dealing with high rents before the pandemic, Krocker says.

“Housing is incredibly expensive in Northern Virginia. And we know we have a large percentage of low- and moderate-income families who are struggling, living paycheck to paycheck to be able to afford their rent and still put food on the table,” she says. “So we knew that we would be facing a real eviction crisis if there was not some sort of assistance to keep people in their homes.”

Some Northern Virginia zip codes — particularly in closer-in suburbs like Arlington and Alexandria — have received upwards of $10 million in rent relief funds from the program through the end of 2021, according to an eviction mapping tool put together by the Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance.

While the state program is ending, there are still some more limited sources of local support for people facing possible eviction, from area service providers, faith groups, and city or county governments. Northern Virginians looking for help can find contact information for their local department of housing and human services on NVAHA’s COVID rental relief webpage.

The District’s federally-funded rent relief program ended in October 2021, with an influx of applications before the deadline. The Prince George’s County program closed to new applications in December. In Montgomery County, renters will be able to apply for a new round of rental relief funding starting on May 16.