Thanks for drafting readable guidelines!

Suggested additions

1. Eligible Expenses section. Administering the required activities (financial assistance, stabilization services, etc.) requires direct service salary expenses. It is assumed these salary expenses are eligible for VERP reimbursement; however, in the admin costs section "associated staff salaries" is listed. This creates confusion on whether or not staff costs for program requirements are eligible expenses. 
2. Add grant term if possible
3. Add expected timeline (application - award)

In Bedford, we had formed a Bedford Housing Coalition in 2019 and began addressing the same eviction prevention issues this program contains.  The Coalition did not survive the Pandemic.  It will be great to have a separately funded and staffed program in the Lynchburg area to provides exactly the services indicated.  Identifying and networking with landlords will be the biggest challenge in this area of city, small town and rural landlords.

I particularly support the prioritization of service provision based on urgency of client need.

Thank you for the helpful input sessions. This program is so critical to the mission of community action and we appreciate DHCD’s leadership and efforts. Below are suggested priority changes. We share these suggestions with the intent to help strengthen program impact for clients.

Scoring: Community Need Scores

The Community Access and Community Need Scores are noted as set published criteria. Please include the points per locality per DHCD’s scoring in the appendix so that applicants can fully understand and access. Also please note the rule to average community need across localities could encourage applicants to exclude neighboring localities that would bring this score down. Bringing high need and lower need regional application together can bring additional local match. We urge DHCD to factor in the legislative intent to have statewide coverage with special focus on areas of greatest need and help applicants understand how to balance both of these policy goals. 

Scoring: Community Access Scores

The Score for this criteria should be decreased significantly as it can be very subjective and not all applicants will have all information. If we understand correctly the more resources an applicant is aware of and shares on this needs assessment the lower score they will receive. This could be very problematic and subjective. The need for rent assistance outstrips availability in all of the Commonwealth.

Scoring: Priority for Match

Please ensure the local match bonus points are clearly understood to be applicant or applicant partner match regardless of the local source. As locally controlled federal and state funding should also count such as HUD CDBG, HOME, HHS CSBG, HHS TANF and many other sources. Any cash or in-kind match relevant to the project should count. This should clarify as well that existing local or organization investments with funds regardless of source satisfy the match requirement.

Please also provide bonus points to applicants that already have existing housing counseling, emergency services, housing services and other programs that complement the application.

One applicant selected per region or locality should be reconsidered

We urge DHCD to allow more than one applicant per region or locality. Or to allow DHCD to ask applicants from the same or overlapping regions to consider a joint program or partnership. Everything possible should be done in scoring and guidelines to encourage partnership amongst this whole ecosystem. One winning applicant per locality is an impediment to cooperation. DHCD can reserve the right to fund the highest scoring application from a region but then also add funding to be sub granted and pull in the match of other application from a region.

Administrative Costs vs. Programmatic Costs – Please clarify to ensure grantee capacity and programmatic staff capacity

The guidelines establish a 10% administrative cost limitation, which may include certain personnel costs. To ensure DHCD is supporting the true capacity needs to manage complex grant programs for nonprofits and local governments we urge allowing the federal de minimis rate of 15% for indirect costs. Administrative cost definitions are hard to define and lead programs to have insufficient capacity to deliver. Instead, we recommend a set minimum percentage of direct funds that should be budgeted for program participants and allow flexibility for direct staffing costs for program managers, housing counselors, court navigators, or other staff directly delivering VERP services to be considered programmatic personnel and therefore direct services. These services should be clearly defined as not subject to any administrative cap or the program will be much less effective at serving clients and achieving the goals of VERP.

Capacity Building

The required grant elements may be difficult for many applicants to develop in an initial proposal. The requirement to have both prevention and court navigation services and other policy goals make the program more complex. Recommend that smaller grants be allowed to help the needs of smaller communities with less experience. These areas could use the ability to first apply for eviction prevention services and surging support to the prevention space. The court navigation space is important but requires more funding and resources to be effective. At a minimum allow grantees to focus first on prevention and build out court navigation and policy role requirements to implement in the second year of the grant.

Building a New Statewide Effort Requires Statewide Training Grants and Capacity Building that ties VERP to other Housing and Human Services Efforts

In addition, a statewide training grant or grants should be offered as part of the RFP to allow state associations of local governments, community action and other nonprofit providers to build capacity to incorporate more training and cross collaboration for all existing housing and human services efforts with VERP.

What to Expect

Please add what to expect section for applicants to help plan for potential award including when funding is expected to start and fully utilize funds by, whether funding for year two application is expected at the same or reduced effort to help plan for whether a ramp up and then ramp down may be required. It would also be helpful for applicants to know what the minimum and max grant request can be.

Regional Requirement

VACAP supports a focus on regional applicants. However, DHCD should consider allowing applications that serve a single locality when there is a demonstrated need or where regional collaboration is documented as not feasible. 

Capacity Building vs. Personnel

The guidelines state that DHCD may reserve funding for "capacity-building" in high-priority or high-need localities when no fundable application is received. Clarification on which activities are intended to fall under capacity-building. Specifically, does capacity-building include limited personnel costs, such as funding for staff necessary to establish or expand an eviction prevention program, or is it intended solely for activities such as training, technical assistance, partnership development, and organizational planning?

Six-Month Assistance Limit

The guidelines allow exceptions to the six-month financial assistance limit for households residing in subsidized or income-based housing with documented justification. DHCD should consider allowing documented exceptions for households in market-rate housing as well. Households in market-rate housing often experience significant rent increases and financial hardships without the benefit of rental subsidies. Allowing flexibility based on documented need, regardless of housing type, would enable grantees to address unique circumstances while maintaining appropriate oversight.

Post-Eviction Engagement

The guidelines state that VERP funds may not be used to assist households whose eviction occurred prior to, or outside of, their engagement with the program. Clarification on what constitutes as "engagement with the program." For example, if a household interacts with a VERP provider several days before a scheduled eviction and begins the intake process prior to the eviction date, would that household be considered engaged and therefore eligible for assistance?

Prioritization Process

The guidelines require grantees to prioritize households based on risk factors and imminent eviction. While we support prioritizing households with the greatest need, especially households with children as specified in the reporting requirements to the General Assembly, please clarify whether DHCD expects a formal scoring methodology or whether grantees may use operationally appropriate triage processes. For example, households presenting with a Writ of Eviction may receive same-day assistance, while households with a Pay or Quit Notice are scheduled as appointments become available. We recommend allowing flexibility for grantees to implement prioritization processes that align with local court operations and service delivery.

Fiscal Management

The fiscal management section requires reporting of significant transactions to the CEO. Since many local governments and public entities do not have a Chief Executive Officer, clarification/inclusion of the intended equivalent positions would be helpful (e.g., City Manager, Executive Director, or other authorized official).

Payment Process Questions 

• Will awards be distributed as advance payments, scheduled installments, or on a reimbursement basis? Advanced payments are necessary to ensure timely payments to clients and at a minimum an expectation of reimbursement to grantees within 10-15 days to ensure cash flow remains strong for nonprofits operating the program.
• If advance payments are available, what is the anticipated payment schedule? 

What documentation will be required to receive subsequent payments? It is critical that clear, consistent and as simple as possible reimbursement paperwork be required as possible. A template provided upon award is critical to success and ongoing training around reimbursement processes. In addition, a clear and consistent appeal process and quick timelines are needed when reimbursements are denied or additional documentation is needed. 

As a current recipient of VERP funding, we are grateful for the opportunity to administer this program and have witnessed its positive impact firsthand. The program has contributed to a measurable reduction in housing loss due to eviction, while also fostering stronger collaboration among community stakeholders. Through coordinated planning and implementation, partners have worked together toward the shared goal of making evictions rare, brief, and humane when they occur.

While I support accountability and equitable access to assistance, I am concerned that requiring programs to prioritize households based on risk factors could create significant administrative barriers that undermine the timely intervention necessary to prevent eviction. Eviction prevention is most effective when assistance can be delivered quickly, before legal proceedings advance and housing instability escalates. It is practical and trauma-informed to set a specific priority for cases in which a judgement has already been ordered.

In practice, a prioritization requirement often necessitates the creation and management of waitlists, additional assessments, and more complex eligibility determinations. These processes can slow assistance delivery and divert limited staff capacity away from direct service. Delays can be particularly detrimental in eviction prevention, where the difference of a few days can determine whether a household remains stably housed.

My concern is informed by observations of coordinated entry systems within the homeless services sector, which rely heavily on prioritization. While well-intentioned, these systems often result in confusion, frustration, and lengthy waits for vulnerable households seeking assistance. Extending a similar approach to eviction prevention programs risks introducing the same barriers and unintended consequences into a system designed to respond rapidly to housing crises.

I encourage the state to preserve local flexibility in determining how assistance is delivered and to prioritize approaches that maximize speed, accessibility, and housing stability outcomes. Maintaining streamlined access to eviction prevention resources will better support the program's core mission of keeping households safely housed and preventing the trauma and costs associated with displacement.

The Virginia Housing Alliance thanks you for the opportunity to provide comments on the proposed Virginia Eviction Reduction Program (VERP) guidelines. We appreciate DHCD's continued investment in eviction prevention and support the expansion of this critical program. As eviction filings remain persistently high and the vast majority of cases continue to stem from nonpayment of rent, VERP remains an essential tool for keeping Virginians stably housed. VHA is very supportive of the program, but we offer the following recommendations to further strengthen it and improve clarity for applicants.

Capacity Building Grants: We appreciate the inclusion of capacity-building funding for high-need communities that may not submit a fundable application during the primary funding round. This approach has the potential to expand VERP into underserved areas and support organizations that have strong community ties but limited rental assistance administration experience. However, the guidelines provide very little information about how this opportunity will be executed. We encourage DHCD to explain how organizations will be notified of this opportunity, when applications will be accepted, whether this will be a separate application or funding track, and how eligibility and evaluation criteria will differ from the primary competition.

Organizational Capacity: Requiring prior experience of eviction prevention services could unintentionally limit the program's ability to expand into communities with significant unmet need where capable organizations have not previously administered this type of funding. While the capacity building grants could be a partial solution to this, it is unclear how such grants would be administered, as stated previously. 

Eligibility for Hotel and Motel Residents: We are concerned about the eligibility exclusion for residents who did not engage with VERP prior to initiating a hotel stay, which is often the only choice to avoid homelessness while fighting an eviction. It is also unclear what would be considered “engagement” with the program. At a minimum, we recommend extending VERP eligibility to individuals and families who have resided in a hotel or motel as their primary residence for more than 90 consecutive days. Under Virginia law, these residents are afforded the same tenant protections as other renters and face many of the same risks of housing instability. 

Eviction Diversion Programs: While we support greater coordination with the Eviction Diversion Program and encourage community partners to do what they can to raise awareness of it, we are concerned that the current guidelines may place responsibility for this on the wrong party. Nonprofits are rarely the first point of contact in the eviction process. Therefore, we risk missing tenants at the most pivotal moment - when they receive a summons - if we position nonprofits as the primary source of information on EDP. We recommend clarifying that such information should be directly embedded in the court process and that nonprofit engagement should reinforce that awareness, not substitute for it. 

Flexibility: Overall, we encourage DHCD to preserve flexibility within VERP as the program grows. Establishing consistent statewide expectations is important, but the program's effectiveness has come from allowing local providers to tailor interventions, including navigation, mediation, financial assistance, and legal referrals, to local court practices, service capacity, and tenants needs rather than relying on a single model. The guidelines should continue to support that local discretion so providers can deploy the strategies that are most responsive, cost-effective, and impactful in their jurisdictions. 

In conclusion, VHA has long supported VERP and all efforts to expand and improve it. We applaud DHCD’s management of the pilot in the past and vision for the program in the future. We would love to be a resource to the agency as the 2027-28 guidelines are finalized. Thank you for your time and consideration. 

COMMENTS ON VERP GUIDELINES

Thank you for providing an opportunity to comment on the program guidelines for the Virginia Eviction Reduction Program (VERP). We view the continuation and expansion of VERP as essential to lowering eviction rates across Virginia. Over 90% of the unlawful detainer cases filed against renters in Virginia are based on claims of non-payment, and statewide eviction filings continue to hover slightly above 80% of where they were at their highest in 2018. Clearly, VERP is as necessary as ever, as data shows that communities with access to VERP funding see declining eviction rates. Thus, while the comments below suggest ways to improve the program and the application process, we want to emphasize our continued support and appreciation for VERP.

Strengthening Collaboration with Local Legal Aid Organizations

While the draft guidelines suggest that applicants can partner with local legal aid organizations through subgrant agreements or referrals, we urge DHCD to expand upon this opportunity by providing a clear framework for what the VERP-funded legal aid attorney will do. We suggest that, in addition to providing full-scale representation in exceptional cases under guidelines established by the primary grantee and the legal aid, the VERP-funded legal aid attorney could:

• Hold information sessions at the courthouse before the unlawful detainer return docket for tenants with cases on that day’s docket.
• Sit through the unlawful detainer return docket in the courtroom, to observe the judge’s ruling on each case and to serve as a “friend of the court,” assisting the judge in interpreting the law as needed and/or requested.
• Advise individual tenants after the docket ends on their potential next steps.

One major benefit of engaging a legal aid lawyer at the courthouse, as described above, is that tenants facing eviction will get almost immediate answers to their questions about the practical effect of the judge’s statements or ruling, and advice on what steps to take next. This immediacy is invaluable, as the eviction process moves quickly in Virginia, with tenants having ten short days to appeal a judgment for possession (eviction order) and often having the same short time frame to pay the landlord and redeem to have the eviction canceled.

In addition to providing courthouse assistance, a legal aid subgrantee should accept referrals of tenants from the primary grantee as soon as practicable so they can provide advice and screen the case for potential full representation before the first court date. These referrals should be in addition to the courthouse services described above.

Capacity Building Grants

The guidelines mention at the bottom of page six that if DHCD does not receive a fundable application for a high-priority or high-need locality, they can reserve a portion of available funds for capacity building grants for that area. However, it is unclear how eligible organizations will be notified about the availability of those capacity building grants and when the application period would open relative to the primary application period. Clarifying these things in the guidelines would be helpful.

Loss of Funds Due to Noncompliance

If a grantee is out of compliance and loses second-year funding as a result, we suggest providing that second-year funding to another eligible nonprofit serving the same localities or locality as the defunded grantee to try to maintain continuity of services.

VERP as a Stand-alone Service

We applaud DHCD for including in the VERP guidelines the rule that VERP assistance cannot be conditioned on a tenant accepting or participating in a referral. Often, tenants’ life circumstances make participating in services difficult if not impossible, and these tenants should not be penalized.

Hotel and Motel Residents

We urge DHCD to make people living in hotels or motels eligible to receive VERP assistance once they have lived in the hotel or motel for more than ninety consecutive days. Under the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, anyone who has resided in a hotel or motel as their primary residence for more than 90 days is treated as a tenant, with the same protections and rights as any other tenant. Thus, financial assistance and referrals, in particular referrals to legal aid in the event of an unlawful eviction/lockout, are critical to help this population find stable housing.

Organizational Capacity

The Organizational Capacity section at the bottom of page 31 of the guidelines implies that having delivered eviction prevention services in the past is a prerequisite to receiving VERP funding. We are concerned about this being a prerequisite, as it could create an unnecessary barrier to program expansion to new geographic areas unless the intention is to target high-need areas already providing eviction-reduction services with only local or other non-VERP funding, such as metropolitan Richmond or Northern Virginia.

Eviction Diversion Programs

We suggest adding to the guidelines on or about page 33 a recommendation that applicants in areas without an Eviction Diversion Program in their court describe how they will work with community partners to advocate with local General District Court judges for the establishment of a local Eviction Diversion Program.

Court Presence Plan

In accordance with our recommendations above, we suggest adding to the court presence plan section on page 34 of the guidelines: 

              If you have a subgrant agreement with the local legal aid, describe how legal aid will get court dockets in time to conduct conflicts of interest checks for the tenants with cases on the unlawful detainer return dates to ensure the legal aid attorney is authorized to accept a case for full representation without delay if warranted.

Thank you for considering our comments and suggestions. Please feel free to contact us with any questions.

Thank you for the opportunity to review the guidelines for the VERP program.  People who are extremely low income (ELI), a significant number among the disability community, are on fixed income and unable to work or are under employed without employee benefits, struggle to pay rent, juggling bills, due to lack of available, assisted housing.  Applicants who are ELI shouldn't be immediately referred to other resources such as CoC funds, but receive intake and assessment so they can return without delay for VERP assistance if other funding is not available or too limited to provide housing stabilization.  Those who are ELI may need VERP financial assistance to fill in the gap and wraparound services to resolve each applicant's housing instability.