• Finding rooms, apartments, or homes that may be available to rent, or other programs such as government housing vouchers

• Help filling out complex applications and submitting them to property managers, property owners, or subsidy programs like Section 8. This includes deciding how to handle information about a household’s immigration status.

• Helping renters when property managers or owners speak a language the renter doesn’t speak. Sonoma Valley is home to many people who speak a variety of Indigenous languages and for whom even Spanish is a difficult second language.

• Help for low- or no-literacy renters, or people for whom digital technology is a challenge

• A related service is master leasing, in which a nonprofit can “master lease” a multi-unit housing site from a landowner. The nonprofit then creates individual rent/lease agreements with multiple residents. The nonprofit takes on the financial and legal liability for tenants who may have bad credit or credit, be unable to pay upfront costs, have no tenant history, or be otherwise risky. Taking that liability away from the landowner can enable the landowner to say yes to renting to higher-risk, lower-income tenants. Catholic Charities master leases multi-unit buildings, though none so far in Sonoma Valley. SHARE Sonoma County master leases multiple individual single family homes in Sonoma Valley; sometimes this approach is called “scattered sites” master leasing.

When low-income people can’t pay their rent without compromising their ability to pay other essential expenses like health care, medication, clothing, shoes, and food, there are multiple organizations that can write a check to help with rent. They all have limits: they have limited funding to give out, they have varying criteria for giving, or clients may find their documentation requirements burdensome (most of the requirements are due to government funding sources).

Rental assistance may involve: help finding and deciding which assistance providers to approach, help filling out and submitting applications especially when clients have low literacy or low tech skills, making a compelling argument for why they need help, tracking the status of their application, receiving the assistance if they are unbanked or don’t have a physical address, and paying out money to approved clients for rent, upfront deposits, or related costs.

Move-in costs can be prohibitive, and some programs assist with these costs when someone is moving.

Currently, in Sonoma Valley, three organizations offer rental assistance: FISH provides the greatest amount annually; HomeFirst offers substantial financial help to low-income renters who are moving into housing after homelessness; and La Luz Center. 

Landlords of all types, from local residents who rent out a single home to corporate property managers, are a key constituency in the effort to start and maintain stable tenancies. Service providers have to win and keep the trust of landlords, and understand their perspectives and needs. HomeFirst, for example, provides financial incentives and public recognition to participating landlords. Catholic Charities and SHARE take on the entire role of master leasee for multiple units at a time.

Low-income people, and people with any type of immigration issue in their household, are often at a disadvantage if their living situation is unsafe or unhealthy, because they cannot afford to alienate their landlord and replacement housing is difficult to find. Such people need assistance seeking resolution of problems with their landlord. It is also generally in the best interest of landlords, especially small-time landlords who make up the majority of Sonoma Valley landlords, to retain their tenants instead of losing them, to maintain consistent rental revenue.

There’s a spectrum of landlord-tenant negotiation services, from facilitating problem-solving conversations or bridging a language barrier, to formal mediation, to full legal action. Legal Aid of Sonoma County is the County’s largest provider of legal services for low-income residents, especially on housing issues, and provides services onsite or remotely for various Sonoma Valley nonprofits. For example, La Luz helps tenants handle issues with their landlord and will advocate for tenants when appropriate. When the issues escalate or require legal counsel, for ten years La Luz has referred clients to Legal Aid who is co-located at La Luz's premises.

For decades, Sonoma Valley has been blessed with outstanding nonprofit volunteers, staff, and donors who give, invent, work, and care. The creativity of nonprofits to respond to evolving needs by creating new programs, raising money, and partnering with each other and with government agencies is amazing. We are lucky.

Many nonprofits provide overlapping housing-related services in Sonoma Valley. Sonoma Valley is gradually seeing more of a presence of larger, out-of-area nonprofits such as Catholic Charities, HomeFirst, and Sonoma Family Meal. These organizations have administrative systems, compliance competency, financial resources, and service integration that smaller local nonprofits may lack, although they also may not have the local knowledge and personal connections with clients that local organizations have built over decades. At this time of extreme need, it is essential that Sonoma Valley leverage the strengths of both types of organizations.

To make sound recommendations, SVC interviewed multiple service providers multiple times. Providers shared information such as:

• The housing-related services that are being offered now, by their organization and others

• What’s working well, and what’s not working, within their organization and in partnering with, or referring clients to, other organizations 

• Particular strengths or weaknesses of individual organizations

• The types and amounts of costs for running these programs, including the amount and cost of staff time needed

• Their ideas for improving the overall housing services ecosystem in Sonoma Valley, especially at this time of extreme need

We learned that despite many existing partnerships, much of what organizations do is unknown to other organizations in the same ecosystem. Nonprofit leaders expect the rest of this federal administration will be extremely difficult, for fundraising and for the lower-income people and immigrants they serve.