NORFOLK, Va. — Families are in great need of eviction prevention resources across Hampton Roads.
The City of Norfolk paused new applications for its assistance program to catch up with increased demand. But, applications will open again very soon.
“Our goal is, of course, to prevent an eviction from happening,” said Norfolk Department of Neighborhood Services Director Kim Pierce.
In February, the Norfolk Eviction Prevention Center temporarily stopped accepting new applications for help so staff could process a backlog of 270 requests.
“It was a considerably high demand than we had seen previously,” Pierce said.
Pierce said her team processed half of the requests but needed more time. They now won’t accept new requests until April 1.
“We are using grant dollars, so we have to screen for several things before we can deem them eligible,” Pierce said.
The re-start date also comes with new rules due to limited resources. Pierce said people can only apply once every 12 months to receive $3,250.
“The goal is to be able to use the limited funding we have to help as many households as possible,” Pierce said. “And so now, we have the $3,250 limit per household, and we can’t pay more than three months of arrearages, and utility payments now have to be incorporated into your rental arrearages. We have seen that a lot of households have their rent and utilities included so we can pay both of those.”
Eviction prevention help is in high demand across the 757.
“Our Norfolk call volume, like really the entire region, has been consistently up year over year,” said For Kids CEO Thaler McCormick.
For Kids runs the regional housing crisis hotline. McCormick said they noticed an uptick in February calls when Norfolk paused its assistance.
“We have had 341 additional calls for the City of Norfolk [in February] than we had in 2022,” Pierce said.
McCormick said every city needs more housing options to stop this eviction cycle.
“I think the reality is until we see more housing units come out of the ground, across the board, we are going to be in an era where we have to be able to provide financial assistance if we want to be able to keep people stable,” McCormick said.
Norfolk Eviction Prevention Center staff are keeping a waitlist while new applications are paused.
They ask Norfolk residents to call 757-664-6363, so someone can determine if they qualify for the funding and get them on the list.
They have a list of other community resources that might be able to help households in the meantime.