City subsidizing landlords under Missoula pilot program to house homeless

A pilot program administered by the City of Missoula aims to get more homeless people into housing by providing landlords financial compensation for renting out their market-rate units.

The Landlord Engagement Pilot Program is meant to strengthen tenant and landlord relationships while incentivizing landlords to rent to more at-risk populations, according to city property engagement specialist Kristian Stipe.

Stipe told the Missoulian in a interview on Friday the program is exploring ways to get homeless people who have reliable incomes — but perhaps have bad credit, a poor rental history or criminal background — into rental units.

The program offers $500 to a participating landlord for every lease signed by a participating tenant. The city also provides a $1,500 risk mitigation fund for each landlord to pay for damages or unpaid rent.

"We are trying to find ways to bring landlords to the table to identify those affordable units in Missoula," Stipe said. "There is a lot of different definitions of what affordability is, and it can be really hard to find what truly affordable units are out there. So trying to connect tenants to those actual affordable units has been our main goal."

For landlords to qualify, their rental charges need to be between $900 to $1,200 per month, Stipe said, adding the tenant is required to pay the full rent amount.

Stipe acts as a mediator to address landlord concerns and also provide light case management to resolve conflicts before they escalate to an eviction or other legal path.

"This is more intended to build a relationship with a landlord," Stipe said. "And as that relationship grows, we are hoping we can bring in more units from that landlord."

So far, one person has been housed through the program since it officially launched in January, Stipe said, but added they have about half-a-dozen landlords and nearly 20 possible tenants enrolled in an "interest list" to participate. Some landlords on the interest list haven't yet had an open unit to rent for the program, Stipe noted, adding that has been the main bottleneck so far.

The project has a total budget of $40,000 of existing city funds, Stipe said. Of that, $500 has been spent, according to the city's public billing documents.

Emily Armstrong, the city's houseless programs manager, told the Missoulian the program is meant to align with the city's "housing first" strategy of getting people a place to live first and then working on other barriers toward self-sufficiency.

The city has facilitated two "housing sprints" under this strategy, where the city used flexible funds to help homeless people hurdle barriers like a security deposit, but those programs are short-term options, Armstrong said.

"This is the long game," Armstrong said, noting the landlord program is still in the pilot phase. "The intention is to build property engagement, landlord engagement into the system overall, so it is not just like for two months when we have an extra rush of funding."

Armstrong said a major goal of the city is to get more people experiencing homeless into long-term housing. Last month, the city launched a call for requests to use a large grant for starting a new housing retention program in the next two years. The city has yet to announce a recipient for the award.

The city is still looking for additional landlords to join the pilot program, which will be reevaluated this summer to determine its effectiveness. For more information, email Stipe at stipek@ci.missoula.mt.us.

"We can hopefully make sure that these landlords in our community who want to help are helping the way they feel is most impactful," Stipe said.