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Ashley
I fell behind on my rent, but I was still trying to pay it when my landlord stopped taking my payments. Then they served me with eviction papers stating that the reason was they simply didn’t want to renew my lease. They intentionally left out that I was struggling to make the payments, so they could evict me and bypass the eviction blocking law. I’m a single mom with two kids. We are now we are in a hotel, and I’ve been taking my belongings to the pawn shop every day just to pay for our room. I won’t be able to keep this up.
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Ann
I have been on unemployment since April 2020. I only get $134 a week from unemployment. My husband doesn’t get anything. We got behind on rent. Got behind on everything. Lights and water. Internet, car payments. We went to the agencies here in my town, but no one could help us with the rent. They only had limited funds for utilities. My work closed permanently in September. I had been there for 14 months. (more…)
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Paul
Hi, my name is Paul and I am 58 years old. I have had COPD for the past 8 years. In February of 2020, I rented a trailer from a lady for $300 per month, without a written agreement, but got a text from her saying I could have it for as long as I wanted it. Four months later someone came to my place with 4 other guys saying leave or be thrown out, so me and my dog Abby left. (more…)
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Felicia
My husband and I have been homeless for about 6 months. We were rooming with a couple of other people, but when COVID-19 started, we were asked to leave because we were not on the lease. We had no choice but to go. We live between our car and sometimes the floor of a storage room on a mattress. I’m working thankfully, but we cannot find a place to rent or live.
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Zeruiah
I was able to pay my rent up until October 2020, but then my unemployment benefits were canceled, and there is still no way to talk to a real person who could explain what to do or how to do it. The complex where I live sent out red notices instead of the management office mailing them, and they placed the red rent delinquent letters outside of our apartment doors where anyone and everyone can see them and read them. I’ve been begging out on the streets of Chicago to get money for rent and food. Not to mention I have underlying health issues that could become terminal if I don’t get treated properly. I have no health insurance either. (more…)
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Donella
I was evicted on my birthday, June 23, 2020. My kids had decided to have a little something for my birthday, so my daughter, daughter-in-law, grandson, son and his friend got the grill together. I made a quick stop to go pick up my baby girl from work, and when we were pulling up back home, the young lady that lived next to us was heading toward my apartment. (more…)
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Monica
My story started long before Covid-19. I got evicted from the townhouse that me, my husband, and our two children had called home for 16 years. I had been diagnosed with a lump in my breast and had just had surgery the day before a sheriff and his team came to put us and our belongings out. My life changed forever. To make matters worse, we are still caring for our son who suffers from bipolar disorder, and my daughter is graduating from high school this year.
I have tried in vain to ask for housing assistance since we are doubled up in a basement sharing one bathroom and two very small bedrooms. My son has a small corner in the kitchen where he has his bed and all his stuff around his bed! I have written emails, made phone calls, and filled out forms for assistance in vain. I was told that I cannot be given housing assistance unless we live in a car, the street, or another place not meant for human habitation.
At the moment, I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hoping to get assistance for paying the rent for our small space. I have been on furlough and my husband was laid off in April, both as a result of Covid. I remain hopeful that I will land in the right office one of these days and obtain the assistance I am seeking. We have moved more than five times in less than one year.
We are a hard-working couple, and though we have managed to stay afloat thus far, our time is running out since we lost a large chunk of our earnings with the onset of the pandemic. Plus our situation was already fragile due to the first eviction.
As soon as the pandemic started, our landlord, who was residing in the same house with us, gave us a 30-day notice to vacate the house. This was despite the fact that we were up-to-date on rent. We were forced to move where we are currently in a basement, bundled up with little to no privacy.
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Erikah
I saw the Eviction Lab had no data for evictions in Alaska, so I’d like to share my story with you. It all started with deed fraud. Some guy got a quitclaim deed for my house, and he served me with a forcible entry and detainer. I went to court and tried to address the actual facts of the situation, and the judge absolutely ignored everything I was saying. (more…)
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Christian
My story is a little different since my family is being evicted without ever breaking our lease. We were never late on rent. We also own our own home, but rent the land. Our landlord hired an attorney to have us evicted. My lease said my landlord was supposed to pay into a relocation fund each month. They never paid, so we will receive no reimbursement for our house. We paid $25,000 for the house five years ago. We saved for years for this house so our kids could go to a good school. The judge granted us protection under the COVID-19 rules, but my landlord’s attorney somehow got the eviction through early. I never even had a hearing. I have no attorney so no one will listen to me. (more…)
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Kelsey
I was given a notice to vacate in October 2020. My landlord is selling the 5-bedroom home we have been renting since October 2017. He told me and my six children that we could rent from him indefinitely, so I never really worried about a future housing obstacle. (more…)
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Leonora
The landlord is throwing me and my two boys out. To top it off, this is a new landlord – our old landlord left without letting the complex know that they where selling the place and throwing us out. The new landlord wants to charge us for October and November rent, and we tenants don’t know what to do. We already paid our October rent to the old landlord.
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Kelly
I am a single mom with three children, earning a monthly income of $2,100. I moved into an apartment in November 2019. I had just been evicted from my 2 bedroom in Humboldt Park area, Chicago, an area that is RIPE with gentrification. The rent was $877/month. The building had been recently renovated, and they tried to advertise as lofts/condos for sale. That neighborhood wasn’t quite ready for that yet. The building had property management, but each unit was owned by different people. The Sec.8 unit rented for $1,250, but market rent was $770-900. The property management company wanted to maximize. They claimed I “damaged” the unit. This was the loophole to terminate the lease, even though I had been in that apartment for 5 years, and that was natural where and tear. This where my EVICTION TRAIN WRECK begins. (more…)
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Gretel
Matthew and I were evicted by our landlord in Mesa, Az. We are now living in my mom’s closet. I am an advocate and closest to Matthew but never really “lived” with him til the very end because he felt threatened by our landlord and didn’t want to/couldn’t be alone. Matthew has Cystic Fibrosis, he is now doing everything he can to avoid COVID-19 and stay out of the hospital. We knew the move was going to stress him out and the CDC moratorium helped a few times in court, but the landlord just kept filing new reasons, and then he just never gave a court date on the last notice. (more…)
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Lisa
My husband became disabled last year in November. Due to a five month waiting period, we got behind on our rent. We were served notice to quit and got a low income fee attorney. At court we did mediation with landlord’s attorneys. We were approved for a housing voucher, and part of the mediation agreement was our landlord would accept voucher, but my landlord would not accept the voucher because it would not cover the full rent amount. So mediation in court fell through. My husband then got very sick with COVID-19 pneumonia and almost passed away. (more…)
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Jessica
I’m a mother of two trying to provide for her family. My kid’s dad past away on October 11, 2019, due to what I believe was an overdose of Ativan. I had demanded they not give him the second dose, but they did anyway. My kids and their dad were best friends, and I had seen him every day of my life for 14 years, then in an instant he was gone. I became the soul provider for us, so there was no time for grieving really. I was working for myself as a handyman, and was pretty behind on rent, so I got help from a church to pay rent up so that I could just focus on providing and not have the stress of eviction.
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