The
moratorium
was
established
by the
Centers
for
Disease
Control
and
Prevention
in
September
2020 to
keep
people
in their
homes
and away
from
crowded
settings
where
the
coronavirus
could
spread
easily.
The
protections
were
extended
several
times
but now
has come
to an
ending.
Also
there is
a catch:
Rent
payments
were
delayed,
not
forgiven.
(Photo
by Molly
Marshall) |
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A
woman
speaks
on the
phone in
front of
a sign
in
Haitian
Creole
during a
news
conference
held by
a
coalition
of
housing
justice
groups
to
protest
evictions,
Friday,
July 30,
2021,
outside
the
Statehouse
in
Boston.
(AP
Photo/Michael
Dwyer) |
|
For
Tenants
Nationwide,
a
Scramble
to Pay
Months
of Rent
or Face
Eviction
By
Sophie
Kasakove
nytimes.com
A
federal
eviction
moratorium
is
scheduled
to end
on
Saturday.
Many
tenants
are
packing
up and
facing
an
uncertain
future.
For
almost a
year, a
federal
moratorium
on
evictions
allowed
tenants
who
suffered
economic
losses
from the
coronavirus
pandemic
to stay
in their
homes.
Now,
the
moratorium’s
scheduled
expiration
at
midnight
on
Saturday
has left
renters
around
the
country
packing
their
belongings
and
facing
an
uncertain
future
as they
search
for
housing
options.
Already,
homeless
shelters
have
been
adding
beds in
preparation
for an
influx
of
people
in need
of a
safe
place to
live.
The
Census
Bureau’s
most
recent
Household
Pulse
Survey,
which
captures
the
impacts
of the
pandemic,
found
that 3.6
million
people
thought
it was
somewhat
or very
likely
they
would be
evicted
within
the next
two
months.
The
moratorium
was
established
by the
Centers
for
Disease
Control
and
Prevention
in
September
to keep
people
in their
homes
and away
from
crowded
settings
where
the
coronavirus
could
spread
easily.
The
protections
were
extended
several
times
but also
had a
catch:
Rent
payments
were
delayed,
not
forgiven.
Now,
many
renters
fear
that the
bill is
coming
due at a
time
when
they
have no
way to
pay it.
“The
government
can’t
imagine
the harm
it’s
doing to
us,”
Migreldi
Lara
said in
Spanish
about
the
impending
end of
the
eviction
ban. She
and her
three
children
are
facing
eviction
from
their
apartment
in
Reading,
Pa.,
after
she lost
her job
and fell
thousands
of
dollars
behind
on rent.
The
moratorium
has
shielded
struggling
renters
from
eviction
whether
they
lived in
public
or
private
housing,
as long
as they
could
prove
they had
lost
income
during
the
pandemic,
attempted
to
obtain
rental
assistance
and made
an
effort
to pay
as much
rent as
possible.
For
many
renters
and
advocates
the
expiration
has a
particularly
painful
sting
because
only a
small
fraction
of the
rent
assistance
approved
by
Congress
has been
distributed.
Many
small
landlords
have
been
anxiously
awaiting
the
funds,
too, as
bills
pile up.
Some
cities
and
states,
including
California
and New
York,
have
their
own
eviction
moratoriums
that
will
outlast
the
federal
one, but
many
renters
will be
left to
rely on
assistance
funds.
Through
June,
however,
local
governments
had
distributed
just $3
billion
of the
nearly
$47
billion
in
rental
assistance
that
Congress
made
available,
according
to the
Treasury
Department.
Cumbersome
documentation
requirements
have
kept
many
people
from
getting
the
money
they
need to
avoid
eviction.
“The
most
frustrating
and
maddening
thing
about
facing
down
this
eviction
cliff,”
said
Diane
Yentel,
president
of the
National
Low
Income
Housing
Coalition,
“is
knowing
that
there
are
abundant
resources
to
assist
tenants.”
Here
are some
of their
stories.
Reading,
Pa.
‘We are
going to
collapse’
A
few
months
after
Migreldi
Lara
moved
from the
Virgin
Islands
to
Reading,
Pa., the
state
reported
its
first
two
coronavirus
cases. A
week
later,
she lost
her job
at a
beauty
salon.
With
little
savings
left
after
the
move,
she
quickly
fell
behind
on her
$750-a-month
rent for
the
three-bedroom
apartment.
Before
the
pandemic,
she had
dreamed
of
saving
to buy a
small
house
with a
yard and
setting
aside
money to
put her
children,
who are
6, 8 and
11,
through
college.
But now
she does
not even
know
what
they
will do
next
month.
Unemployment
benefits
helped
Ms. Lara
catch up
until
the
extra
$600 a
week
approved
by
Congress
expired
in July
2020.
When she
does not
have
enough
money
for gas
to move
her car,
she
sometimes
leaves
it
parked
illegally,
racking
up
tickets.
Her
landlord,
Roberto
Jimenez,
tried to
be
patient.
He even
took the
mic
alongside
Ms. Lara
— both
have
been
active
in
immigrant
justice
organizations
— at a
rally to
call on
the
governor
to
protect
renters.
“She’s
got
three
kids,
how can
we throw
somebody
like
that to
the
street?”
Mr.
Jimenez
asked
the
crowd,
motioning
to Ms.
Lara and
her
children.
Eleven
months
later,
Ms. Lara
is still
waiting
for
assistance.
“If
the
federal
government
doesn’t
help us,
we are
going to
collapse,”
Ms. Lara
said.
Twice
she
applied
through
the
county
for
federal
rental
assistance,
but both
times
she was
told her
application
was
missing
documents.
She
applied
for a
third
time in
May but
has not
received
a
response.
“My
daughter,
my son
ask me:
‘What is
going to
happen?
Where
are we
going to
sleep?’”
Ms. Lara
said.
She
has been
able to
pay some
back
rent
after
getting
a new
job at
an iron
factory,
but she
still
owes Mr.
Jimenez
over
$6,000
in back
rent and
late
fees.
As
the
months
wore on,
Mr.
Jimenez’s
patience
waned.
He said
that if
Ms. Lara
did not
catch up
on the
rent
soon, he
would
have to
evict
her.
Morgantown,
W.Va.
‘My
credit
cards
have
been
maxed
out’
LaChrisa
Winston
had
until
Saturday
to leave
her
Morgantown,
W.Va.,
apartment
before
facing
an
eviction.
For
months,
she
managed
to pay
the $675
rent for
her
one-bedroom
apartment
after
leaving
her job
with
health
concerns
in
February.
She
borrowed
money
from
family
and
friends,
and
emptied
her
401(k).
Sometimes
she was
late,
but she
said she
always
paid.
Ms.
Winston
was
denied
unemployment
benefits
because
the
state
agency
said she
had left
her job
voluntarily.
But it
did not
feel
like a
choice
to her:
Worried
about
Covid-19
exposures
at the
cellphone
store
where
she was
a
saleswoman,
Ms.
Winston,
who has
asthma
and high
blood
pressure,
decided
it was
unsafe
to keep
working.
She
applied
for
rental
assistance
in July,
and her
online
application
still
says it
is
pending.
“My
credit
cards
have
been
maxed
out,
everything
that I
can
think of
to
survive
has been
completely
maxed
out,”
Ms.
Winston
said.
“You’re
kind of
faced
with,
what do
I do? Do
I pay
for
health
care or
do I put
food on
the
table?”
In
mid-July,
she got
a notice
from her
property
manager
that the
company
would
begin
the
eviction
process
if she
did not
pay her
rent
balance
of $750
within
four
days.
It
took her
five.
Ms.
Winston
has
spent
the past
week
juggling
her new
job as a
hospital
scheduler
and her
classes
as a
business
administration
student
with the
time
needed
to
donate
the
belongings
she
cannot
take
with her
and
search
for
affordable
apartments.
She
knows it
will be
even
harder
to find
an
apartment
if she
cannot
get out
in time
to
escape
an
eviction
record.
But with
time
running
low, she
felt out
of
options.
“I’m
just
kind of
waiting
on the
notice,”
Ms.
Winston
said.
“Because
I know
it’s
coming.”
Springdale,
Ark.
‘There’s
not
enough
money to
go
around’
The
federal
eviction
ban
protected
Kori
Ceola
for a
while:
She was
allowed
to
remain
in her
one-bedroom
apartment
after
signing
a copy
of the
moratorium
in March
and
presenting
it to
her
landlord.
Finding
a way to
pay the
rent she
still
owed was
more
difficult.
As
soon as
she got
out of
bed on
the
first
day of
each
month
this
spring,
Ms.
Ceola
would
call two
agencies
in the
Springdale,
Ark.,
area
that
distributed
federal
rental
assistance.
Each
time she
was told
their
funds
had
already
run out.
“There’s
not
enough
money to
go
around
for
enough
people,”
she
said.
Her
application
for
unemployment
was
denied,
too,
because
she
forgot
to
attach a
document.
By the
time she
uploaded
it, the
temporary
federal
program
she was
eligible
for as
an
independent
contractor
had
ended.
Ms.
Ceola, a
home
nurse,
had
contracted
a mild
case of
the
coronavirus
from a
patient
in
January
after
most of
her work
had
already
dried
up. Then
came 14
unpaid
days of
isolation
in her
apartment
and the
repossession
of her
car,
making
it too
difficult
to
return
to her
clients.
By
June,
she was
more
than
$3,000
behind
on her
rent,
unable
to pay
any of
the $525
she owed
monthly.
She
decided
to leave
to avoid
eviction.
A
week
later,
while
she and
her two
service
dogs
were
sleeping
in a
friend’s
apartment,
the
moratorium
was
extended
again.
She had
already
donated
most of
her
belongings.
“I think
I cried
for two
days
straight,”
Ms.
Ceola
said.
She
hopped
from
couch to
couch
until
this
week,
when she
moved
into a
room at
a Motel
6 with
three
other
people
who lost
their
homes
during
the
pandemic.
Ms.
Ceola
worries
that if
she does
not find
enough
money to
pay the
back
rent,
the
eviction
will
land on
her
record,
making
it
difficult
to
secure a
new
apartment.
But what
she
wants
more
than
anything,
she
said, is
to
return
to work.
She
preferred
treating
patients
in their
homes
because
she had
experienced
the poor
conditions
in some
nursing
homes.
“I
get such
a joy
out of
helping
somebody
stay in
their
home,”
Ms.
Ceola
said.
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