UPDATE:  The CDC eviction moratorium has ended.  Read The Eviction Lab's FAQ to learn more.

Aileen

Atlanta , GA
March 19th, 2021|

My husband has always been a hardworking man. One day he came home from work crying, in a lot of pain all over his entire body. He kept asking me to forgive him because he is in so much pain that he cannot work anymore. This happened during October 2020. My husband has applied for SSI Disability. I am disabled myself, raising our grandson who has Autism Spectrum Disorder. Now there are 3 people in our home who are disabled. Our bills got behind because the Social Security Administration worker who was working on my disability case had me repeatedly reporting my husband’s earnings to him  every month while he was working. All of a sudden, in November 2020, my disability money was on my card, and I got a letter from the Social Security Administration saying I have to pay back payment. I asked myself why do I have to pay back payment when my husband is not working anymore? I tried calling the Social Security Administration to talk to them about the $254 they lowered my check to. When I finally got in touch with the worker, his remarks were, “For all I know, he could still be working.” I said how could that be when I repeatedly reported to you every month my husband’s income? He then gave me a number to call and it took 4 months to get most of my income back. By then, all our bills, including our rent, was behind with late fees on all of them.

We live in Clayton County, Georgia, and all the agencies that had funding from the government in our county did not give us help. One agency said our rent is too much, so I would have to contact other agencies to help me. Salvation Army never answered the telephone, I mean never. And if you go into the office, they tell you they don’t take walk-ins for rent and utility assistance. So what do you do if you have no help from agencies when you know that you qualify for help?

Then the eviction warrant showed up at the door of our home. I’m thinking to myself, what if our landlord had taken partial payments from us—we would not be so far behind on our rent. We would have tried to pay our rent if only our landlord had accepted partial payments. We have had no help at all from anyone. I mean no one, but God, our Heavenly Father. We are waiting on a court date. We don’t know what the outcome will be for me and my family.

Greed has taken over mankind. Our friends and family members have not helped, and they are not the people they used to be. There are so many people homeless, living in hotels, motels, sleeping in their cars or wherever they can. If me and my family end up on the street, with nowhere to go, and we try to apply for an apartment for low-income people like us, they are not going to rent us because we are disabled and now have an eviction. So what can we do with people walking around like they don’t care? Is this world coming to an end? All the empty buildings everywhere, all over the world. Why can’t anyone open up those buildings to help us with a place to live as long as we pay our rent?

I know there has to be someone out there that has rental properties that has the Love Of God in their hearts, to help humanity that fell on hard times. Or the government can open up buildings to give people that are going through the same as me and my family a second chance. Please pass my story on to good people who have a heart to rent to low-income people. I just want to live somewhere where me and my family can have peace of mind. I pray that someone out there will help us while we are sitting here waiting to be evicted from our home.

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