Spokane is sticking with LiveStories to hand out rental support – for now

The City of Spokane will stay on track with its rental assistance program, but elected leaders signaled that they want to look for alternatives in the future.

Spokane City Council on Monday agreed to hand Seattle-based LiveStories a $ 10.3 million contract to distribute additional rental support to those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The latest middle tranche complements the millions already distributed by LiveStories who have been working on distributing pandemic aid for the city since last year.

But with the latest round of funding, Councilor Michael Cathcart had urged the city to consider an alternative organization. He cited the frustration he had heard from landlords about the time it takes to process a rental allowance application.

Ultimately, the city council sided with the administration, who warned that it would take weeks to re-tender and that it would not necessarily improve the distribution of rental subsidies.

LiveStories is expected to exit its existing fund in December and finding a new organization to process rental support payments would likely result in a service gap.

City officials also pointed to federal data showing Spokane is among the fastest in Washington at sending out rental assistance checks. When the issue was raised last month, the city cited data from the Treasury Department showing that the average turnaround time for rental assistance was 45 days from the time of application, almost a full month better than the national average of 72 days.

LiveStories has defended its practices, attributing most of the delay to standards put in place to reduce the likelihood of fraudulent claims.

Councilor Betsy Wilkerson said distributing the rental subsidy is a challenge for anyone in charge.

“They’ve reached out to the color communities the most to provide these funds, so I’ll be supporting them,” Wilkerson said of LiveStories.

Still, with the next round of around $ 5 million, Cathcart and the Council are urging the city to launch a new call for proposals to examine the waters.