The package also offers $ 25 billion in first aid.
If the package goes through, none of the measures will likely be enough to keep those at greatest risk in their homes in January.
“While the CDC eviction moratorium for just one month is insufficient to house people for the duration of the pandemic, the expansion provides millions of tenants with essential and immediate protection on the verge of losing their homes in January,” said President and CEO Diane Yentel head of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
After the moratoriums are lifted, many of these tenants will be expected to pay back their entire repayment or come up with some sort of payment plan with their landlord – otherwise they could lose their home.
CNN Business spoke to several tenants who were struggling to afford their monthly payments due to the pandemic.
‘Money piles up against me’
Kelly Green, who lives in a $ 1,429-a-month apartment in Daytona Beach, Florida, has not been able to pay rent since September.
“The only reason I have a roof over my head is because of the eviction moratorium,” Green said.
Green makes her living selling rhinestone and sequin cycling clothing at motorcycle events and other festivals.
After the strike in March, there were no festivals, no events and she had no income. Still, she paid out her savings, incentive payments, rent relief and unemployment insurance and managed to get electricity on her rent until July. But she did not know how to cope after the $ 600-a-week supplementary unemployment benefit ended.
Green has heard of a coronavirus-related rental assistance fund offered by Volusia County, where she lives. She applied for help and received $ 4,500 for three months rent.
‘I thought’ great! ‘it will pay a few months’ rent, and I can move in November when my current lease expires, and I will still have a good credit rating that will allow me to rent another apartment,’ she said.
Without that money, Green could not pay the full rent for October, November or December. And since she exceeded her lease in November, she’s now on a month-to-month lease that is $ 500 more expensive per month.
“Even though the moratorium is being extended, money is piling up on me,” she said. “What will help me the most is if I receive a check on rental assistance for three months that they take it.”
She knows it does not make sense to keep watching the amount she owes grow, but she said she does not know where she will go without endangering friends and family.
“It totally depresses you,” she said. “You feel like giving up. Where do I go when the CDC order expires, and I have this expansion on my plates?”
Must be out by Christmas
Mercedes Darby lives in a three-bedroom apartment in Nashville with her three high school children and her daughter, Princess Thomas, who is in college. The two usually split the rent. Since both were fired in March, they have not been able to afford the rent of $ 1,250 a month since April and currently owe $ 9,000 in rent and fees.
Although Darby provided a CDC statement to her landlord protecting the family from not paying, they are now evicted due to a separate lease – Darby’s name does not appear on the lease.
Darby says the lease is in Thomas’ name, but she’s been living there since they got the apartment together a year and a half ago and she’s paying all the time.
After missing an eviction court date on Dec. 15, there was a default sentence that gave the family ten days off. So Darby packs everything she owns to store.
“We have to be out by Christmas Day, otherwise they will have the sheriff in here,” Darby said after the verdict. “With no money, I have to find a temporary place.”
Darby was fired from her membership services at a major insurance company in March. She has been looking for a new apartment since July. But even after she paid the application fee, she was repeatedly turned down because of her credit history and a previous bankruptcy. Now her daughter is also likely to experience problems as a result of this eviction.
In November, Darby was hired again for a similar job and money came in again. But she now has to pay a lot more money and deposit money for an apartment because of her history.
“I have a good paying job,” she said. “I make enough if you do not want to triple the amount in advance.”
For now, she’s looking for a place for her family to stay through the holidays while finding a more permanent home and preparing for her court date in February with the rent she owes.
“We have nowhere to go,” she said. “We do not have family here and our friends cannot take everyone with us. I am going to try to find a hotel. But it will require all the money I have to put in for another apartment.”
Waiting for rental relief
Bryan Clift’s job as a waiter in suburban Minneapolis dried up last March, and at the same time, the school moved in for his 10-year-old daughter Iyla online. Iyla’s mother, whom she did not see often, passed away a few weeks ago. Now Clift is about $ 2,000 behind on rent and they are in danger of being evicted.
“My daughter is everything I got,” he said. “I introduce her to everything. Making sure she has a roof over her head and food on the table is the most important thing. ‘
They did well through the summer with the unemployment insurance payments he received. But when the $ 600 weekly supplement payments expired, he feared he would be left behind with his $ 1,500-a-month rent for the two-bedroom apartment.
“When I saw my savings go down, I went to talk to the tenants, with whom I had always had a good relationship,” he said. “I said I was going to try my best. They suggested I apply for rent. ‘
He applied for and expects to receive redemption money from Prism, a local non-profit social service. But it is not yet in hand.
“It’s a waiting game,” he said. “If you’re going to ask for help now, it’s going to take a while.”
With this expected support, he hopes to bridge the gap in income until he can work again.
“I can go to work now,” he said. “I want to. I do not like to sit around. But without the schools open, I can not go to work. If something does not change for me in the next few months, what am I going to do? I have? pushed every bill I could repay. And this rent relief will help, but for how long? ‘
Any additional help from the government is welcome, he said, but ‘I can do without the stimulus survey or I have better unemployment, because you can prolong it longer.’
Expansion despite CDC protection
The worst has happened to Jordan Mills and Jonathan Russell and their two-year-old daughter Valkyrie.
Although they were protected by the eviction moratorium, a court granted an eviction in any case.
“People like me are still being evicted because of default,” she said.
She made a payment arrangement with her landlord, but fell behind by about $ 450. The property owners applied for eviction, citing a violation of one part of the CDC statement in which Mills agreed to ‘make the best efforts to make timely partial payments that are as close to full payment as possible. the individual’s circumstances make it possible. ‘
Mills drove to the courthouse to appear at her eviction hearing, but said she could not attend because she did not have money to pay for parking.
“I could not afford parking, it’s all $ 20,” she said. “I literally live by word of mouth. I was paid yesterday. I have $ 4 in my name.”
In May, Mills, an assistant manager at a payday loan company, reduced her hours. She realized that her family would not be able to pay their rent along with their high utility bills during the Texas summer.
She requested and received money for rental assistance, a lump sum of $ 3,500 for three months rent.
When Mills contracted coronavirus, she said their childminder abandoned it as a precaution and her husband left his job as a security guard to look after Valkyrie full-time, which further reduced their income.
After the court ordered their eviction in November, they did not wait until the sheriff arrived. Mills borrowed $ 1,400 from her mother and moved her family out of the one-bedroom, three-bedroom apartment they rented for $ 1,175 a month, living in a 470-square-foot, 470-square-foot apartment in San Antonio.
The family’s new apartment is in a building known as ‘second chance’ rental, for people with evictions or bad credit.
Mills paid dearly for that second chance. In addition to the rent of $ 750 per month, a deposit of $ 299 and a deposit of $ 300 pets, she also had to pay a risk fee of $ 650 due to her history.
“The worst has happened,” she said. “But I’m still afraid it’s going to affect me if I rent somewhere bigger, safer. We have cockroaches. I do not want to stay here.”
“If there was anything for them, they would not turn on the tenants so quickly.”