Richmond clears application backlog for rent, mortgage assistance program

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Richmond officials have finally cleared the backlog of applications for its rent and mortgage payment assistance program -- but several steps still need to be taken before the program can start accepting submissions again.

The "RVA Stay Gap Grant Program" is a program designed to provide targeted relief to qualified residents who are struggling to make their rent or mortgage payments. It is relatively new. While the council has repeatedly rejected lowering Richmond's real estate tax rate over the last several years, it did approve RVA Stay in November 2024.

RVA Stay officially rolled out in 2025, offering one-time payments of $1,200 to qualifying Richmonders on a first-come, first-serve basis. Then, a year later, the program was temporarily paused on Jan. 1 -- though the city didn't announce said pause until Jan. 14.

Per officials, RVA Stay needed to be paused due to "significant operational challenges" it faced, including a high number of incomplete submissions, limited staffing and manual processing constraints.

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As of January, the city had a total of 1,446 unprocessed applications for RVA Stay, with 356 more in the process of being evaluated. The average age of submissions at the time was 92 days.

On Friday, March 30, the city announced that it had cleared this backlog -- a day before its self-imposed deadline of March 31.

“Between January and March 2026, staff have processed 1,802 backlog applications, resulting in an average of 29 daily or 100 to 145 applications per week for approximately twelve (12) weeks," said Richmond chief administrative officer (CAO) Odie Donald, II in a recent memo to Richmond City Council.

RVA Stay has received nearly 4,000 applications since its inception. A total of 610 were approved for a combined $732,000 in aid, while 3,321 were denied.

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According to the city, 52% of RVA Stay applications did not have the required documentation, while 32% were denied for one or more of the following reasons:

• The applicant was not a Richmond resident
• The applicant was already receiving public assistance
• The applicant did not meet the low-income threshold
• The applicant's housing cost was equal to or greater than 30% of their household income

In mid-January, Donald said that he found this "pattern" of ineligibility concerning.

"This pattern warrants monitoring to determine why the eligibility criteria is not operating as in line with Council’s policy goals of ensuring that individuals and households most in need of relief are able to qualify for assistance," Donald said at the time.

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In the recent memo, Donald restated his belief that Richmond would benefit from bringing in an outside vendor to handle tasks associated with RVA Stay, allowing the city's Department of Finance to "focus on the delivery of core services."

“Clearing the backlog, as committed, is step one,” Donald said in the memo. “Next, aligning the resources that have been allocated to the appropriate service delivery is poised to support Richmonders in need, as originally intended by the enabling legislation.”

Per Donald, there are still several things that need to be done to get RVA Stay fully operational once more, including:

• Community outreach planning
• Incorporating lessons learned from program implementation to inform future program design and delivery
• Partnering with a third-party, nonprofit vendor that can oversee the RVA Stay program
• Reappropriating the about $3.168 million in city funds meant for RVA Stay to that vendor
• Repealing the existing legislation associated with RVA Stay and replacing it with new legislation that lays out a revised framework

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“We are committed to delivering dependable services to Richmonders," Donald said in a March 30 press release. "Hitting our internal goal to clear this Gap Grant backlog is a key step in reaching that standard. We remain laser focused on best-in-class service delivery for all programming, and we’re seeing step-by-step improvement in Finance: highlighted by progress on the Gap Grant, to our recent unmodified audit opinion with the ACFR and the historic resolution of audit recommendations in coordination with the City Auditor.”