Pilot housing program in Linn County proving successful after initial hurdles

A Linn County housing program that launched last year — and initially struggled to find landlords to participate — is up and running with seven people currently being housed through the pilot program.

The Landlord and Tenant Success Initiative provides a $1,000 financial incentive to Linn County landlords to offer housing to individuals who have had difficulty getting approved for leases because of past evictions or criminal history. The program also includes a risk-mitigation fund that has been set aside to pay for any damages caused by the tenant, and case management and tenant education classes that the tenants will be financially compensated for attending, up to $700.

“I’m basically guaranteed rent for a year, plus incentive on top of that, and if anything goes wrong those repairs are taken care of,” said Jonathan Doerrfeld, one of the landlords participating in the program. “And on the social side of it, like helping our community, that gets me excited too. It’s working with an organization that’s doing good in our community and filling a need, filling a gap.”

Doerrfeld got involved in the program after reading a previous article in The Gazette, then reaching out to Waypoint Services, which is the contact point for the landlords and tenants participating. Doerrfeld, who owns multiple duplexes around Cedar Rapids, didn’t have any available space when he first heard about the program, but shortly thereafter he acquired a new property.

“I actually got that unit because of a friend of mine who was struggling to get housing because of his background, but I knew him. He just made some bad mistakes, but he has been doing great, has a good job, but because of his record, couldn’t get housing,” Doerrfeld said. “So, I saw an opportunity to help him out but then also get a good renter. But, it had an upstairs unit that was empty, and I looked at different ways to fill that, and I remembered this program.”

The tenants in the program are selected by Waypoint Services and all qualify for Rapid Rehousing, a federally funded program that provides short-term assistance to individuals experiencing homelessness.

According to an update released in May by Linn County’s Alliance for Equitable Housing — a coalition of housing, local government entities, nonprofits, philanthropic partners and other organizations — 16 individuals have enrolled in the program, and seven have been housed through it. Three people who enrolled in the program ended up finding other housing solutions. Of the seven who have been housed through the program, five are living in for-profit units, and two are living in units provided by a nonprofit.

The program initially sought to house 30 tenants in its pilot year, but finding units has been a challenge. So far, it has taken an average of 116 days to find an available unit for each newly enrolled participant.

Waypoint has been contacted by 37 landlords with interest in learning more about the program, only 17 percent of whom are now active participants. Some of the landlords who reached out are interested in the program but do not currently have vacant units available. Five units that were identified as possible options for the program were not used because they did not pass initial habitability inspections by Waypoint, the update states.

All of those enrolled and housed in the program have passed their in-unit inspections so far and qualified for their quarterly incentives.

Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust may continue to fund program

The pilot program is funded by Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust. The bank reached out to multiple housing-based nonprofits in early 2024 to ask about ways it could support housing efforts in the Cedar Rapids area, and the Alliance for Equitable Housing presented the Landlord and Tenant Success Initiative.

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“Our headquarter is downtown, so we experience, interact with, and see a lot of the unhoused population, and we thought, this seems to fit our role as a community bank really well, and we want to do something and be part of the solution,” said James Klein, president and CEO of Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust, said. “We work with many of the nonprofits that are also in this realm, and it just felt like a great way for CRBT to provide some leadership to our community.”

The bank provided the alliance with a $100,000 grant to pilot the first year of the program and the alliance has kept the bank updated on the status of the initiative. Klein said he’s been impressed by the work that has gone into the program and the way that difficulties, like the need to find landlords to participate, have been handled. He said the bank would be happy to continue to fund the program in future years.

“I said, ‘if we’re going to do this, we’re not just going to write a check and walk away. We really want to be part of the solution.’ So, we gave the funding, but then we bring everybody together every quarter here at CRBT for updates on the data,” Klein said. “As of today, I would say I’m extremely pleased with where we’re at, extremely impressed with the work of the Alliance for Equitable Housing … and all the people involved in it. I would have no hesitation saying CRBT is definitely in to keep this going.”

Landlords who are interested in the program or have questions about it can contact Waypoint Services Landlord Liaison Adrienne Kasner via email at akasner@waypointservices.org, or via text or phone call at 319-531-9352.

Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com