A city-run website that provided rental assistance, originally scheduled to reopen on March 1, will now be closed indefinitely.

The portal is a part of the “I Belong in Austin” program and has provided over $16 million to renters at risk of losing their homes from 2021 to 2026. The program’s funding was reduced this year from $4 million to $3 million after voters did not approve a property tax increase in November 2025. These remaining funds will be reallocated to negotiated eviction settlements.

“While emergency rental assistance has been a critical resource, demand has continued to outpace available funding,” wrote Zohaib “Zo” Qadri, city council representative for District 9, in an email. “By focusing on eviction prevention through negotiated settlements, we are prioritizing the most immediate interventions that can keep people in their homes, intervene earlier in the eviction process, and prevent displacement before it happens.”

Rosamaria Murillo, the CEO of El Buen Samaritano, the city’s partner in the rental assistance program, said eviction settlements are necessary to help families that have lost their homes. 

“If you don’t have a negotiated settlement, once you’re evicted … it’s almost impossible to find a house,” Murillo said. “These negotiated settlements help people to pay the landlord whatever is negotiated and also allow folks to still be able to find a home to rent.”

Through the portal, renters in need would fill out an application for assistance, and El Buen Samaritano would randomly pick renters from the portal to distribute aid to. 

Murillo said there were approximately 2,000 applications each month, and only 100 people were served within that month. She said while the program was not able to serve all of those in need, providing both avenues of resources was the best way to aid renters in Austin.

“While both are important, the one where people go into the portal and apply for assistance is so needed because it stops the bleeding,” Murillo said. “It helps those families that for whatever reason. Maybe they lost their job, they had healthcare challenges or some unexpected expense came up, and then all of a sudden they fell behind (on) their rent.”

The decrease in funding for the program comes after a “reduction in overall funding for the City,” according to the Austin Housing Website. Proposition Q, a tax rate election that would have increased city funding by raising property taxes, failed to pass last November. 

After the election, the city cut $95 million from the budget, including a $38 million decrease in social services contracts. Eric Lindholm, part of the program staff overseeing “I Belong in Austin,” said the decreased funding severely limited their ability to serve Austin residents.

“Given the funding available, we prioritized the negotiated settlements and diversion strategies over direct rental assistance through the application process to stretch resources and prevent as many evictions as possible,” Lindholm wrote in a statement. 

Jake Wegmann, associate professor of architecture at UT, said the decrease in funding has led to the city reevaluating its funding priorities. 

“Even when this program was at its full size, it was relatively small compared to the scale of the problem of the need that’s out there,” Wegmann said. “That’s just hard, right? What’s the city supposed to do?”