Our family of seven adults is struggling. My husband’s income supports all seven of us. Four of our kids just graduated with Honors and High Honors from the local community college. Three lost jobs because of the pandemic. The CDC Eviction Moratorium kept us in our home.

Same landlord is suing us for the 2nd time in a pandemic year. The 1st case was decided in our favor because the landlord’s story wasn’t compelling and we qualified for the CDC Eviction Moratorium. This time, the landlord flouted the ruling by the judge and filed for eviction on June 3, 2021– a full 27 days before the CDC Eviction Moratorium was extended.

Since the CDC E.M. wasn’t specific enough -landlords can terminate leases and sue for eviction for “holding over,” many families like ours are at risk of losing shelter. Our family only has two unreliable cars–so driving a long distance to find another house outside the city where rents might be more reasonable is impossible. In our city, we weren’t given the opportunity to attend mediation. We are law-abiding, so why doesn’t our landlord have to abide by the same laws?

Landlord refuses to provide a reference, nor our perfect rental history—so every application for a new place is met with a resounding “NO”. We are mild, hard-working people. We keep the yard nice, and the house is in ok condition considering that our landlord fails to maintain her property. This past winter- she sold the house next door– while our family went without heat for 19 days.

Not all tenants are deadbeats and not all landlords should be above the law. This is the wrong time to force families to face homelessness. Thank you for reading my story. It’s a mess out here. If anyone has any property that needs work-we can work. We have already reached out to churches, charities, 211, strangers on the street and no one knows of anywhere for us to live. I even ask people if they have a bus, old rv, cottage or cabin, they would be willing to rent and nada…

We are a family of seven, so can’t just rent a one-bedroom apt without breaking the lease by having too many people use the space (plus- no reference). We aren’t on welfare and no one worked long enough to qualify for unemployment. Three of our kids lost their places at universities, too. We can garden, paint, landscape, clean. There has got to be some relief for families. The CDC should really extend the eviction moratorium for a year so people can catch their breath.