While petting her dog, who is sleeping peacefully in the living room of the apartment where she has lived for the past five years, West Warwick, Rhode Island resident Roxanne Schaefer recounts the grief of preparing to be evicted.
"I have anxiety.
I'm nervous.
I can't sleep, ”he tells the AP news agency.
"If (the landlord) does, you know, I'll lose everything and have nothing.
I'll be homeless
."
The woman owes $ 3,000 in back rent and her landlord has been trying to evict her since January.
She cashes a monthly check for $ 800 for being disabled, but that amount is not enough to rent a new apartment.
[I couldn't pay the rent, what should I do now? Doubts about the end of the moratorium]
The only thing stopping the landlord from throwing her out was the federal moratorium on evictions, adopted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in September 2020 to protect those who fell behind with their rent due to the COVID pandemic. 19.
But the measure expired this Saturday at 11:59 pm, after President Joe Biden and Democratic congressmen failed to come up with a short-term strategy to prevent it.
People from a Coalition for Housing Justice carry anti-eviction posters during a press conference next to the Massachusetts Legislature in Boston on July 30, 2021. AP
On Friday it became clear that there would be no solution in sight for the eviction problem, after the House of Representatives, with a Democratic majority, failed to agree on a new extension, as requested by the president.
The congressmen, instead, suspended the session to enter the August recess without having approved the extension.
Rep. Cori Bush, D-Missouri, slept outside the Capitol on Friday in protest against her fellow lawmakers, urging them to return and reach a last-minute deal before midnight.
“The House (of Representatives) is in recess.
People are on vacation.
How can we take a vacation when we have millions of people who could start being evicted tonight?
"Bush told CNN on Saturday afternoon.
"We have to go back".
A few hours later, the congresswoman tweeted a photo with the chairman of the House Rules Committee, Representative Jim McGovern, and said that he was willing to "immediately rebuke" to approve an extension, if the other legislators addressed the Congress.
However, his push was unsuccessful.
It is estimated that more than 3 million households in the United States have fallen behind in paying their rent, according to March figures from the Department of Housing, and now face the inevitable: being forced out of their homes.
As of July 5, some 3.6 million people are facing eviction, according to the Census's Household Pulse Survey.
Many are from Latino families.
“August is going to be a difficult month because many people will be displaced from their homes,” Jeffrey Hearne, director of litigation at the law firm Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc. told the AP.
“It will be a number that we have not seen before.
There are many people who are protected by the moratorium ”.
In Grand Prairie, Texas, Judge Sasha Moreno told our sister network NBC's local channel that she has about 100 pending eviction cases on her desk and expects more to come after the moratorium ends.
"On Monday we will have to start sending out hearing notices for all those cases and we will have to start hearing those cases, in addition to all the new requests that we are receiving," Moreno said.
Thousands of families could be left on the streets after the expiration of the eviction moratorium
July 30, 202102: 20
Kaylah Johnson, a resident of the city of DeSoto explained to NBC Channel 5 in Dallas that she lost her job during the pandemic and was unable to pay her rent.
Meanwhile, she has had to take care of her children's education at home.
"Having to keep a roof over our heads and not having a job was very difficult," he said.
Millions of Latinos harmed
The end of the moratorium will also hurt millions of Latinos across the country.
According to a study by the Eviction Lab of Princeton University, "the zip codes with the most evictions in each city tend to be in communities of color," where mostly Latinos and blacks live.
"The government cannot imagine the damage it is doing to us,"
Migreldi Lara, a Hispanic mother who with her three children, is facing eviction from her apartment in Reading, Pennsylvania,
told
The New York Times after
losing her job and finishing owing thousands of dollars in rent.
Part of the camp set up in front of the Capitol, in Washington DC, the Democratic representative Cori Bush, who spent the night of Friday, July 30, outside to ask congressmen to extend the moratorium on evictions that ends on Saturday, July 31. Joshua Roberts / Getty Images
The proportion of applications filed against Latino tenants during the pandemic has increased in both cities with large Latino populations, such as Houston and Fort Worth, Texas, and small ones, such as Philadelphia and Columbus, Ohio, according to data from the Eviction Lab.
A recent survey carried out by the Census Bureau, whose data was reviewed by Noticias Telemundo, shows that close to a third (26%) of Latinos who are behind in their rent are very likely to be evicted from their homes in the next two months. .
That number doubles the percentage (13%) of white people who believe they will have to leave their homes.
You also see a difference when people are asked if they trust they will be able to raise their rent money next month: 20 out of 100 Hispanics have low or believe they can, while 14 out of 100 whites are in the same situation.
The new wave of COVID-19 infections threatens the US economic recovery
July 29, 202101: 52
"I personally know that many of the people who will be evicted are people who worked before, who never had problems," Kristen Randall, an agent for Pima County, Arizona, who will be responsible for carrying out the evictions, told AP on Monday. .
"These are people who have already tried to find a new home, a new apartment or move in with families," he said.
“I know some of them plan to stay in their cars or are trying to make reservations at local hostels
.
But because of the pandemic, space in shelters has been more limited, "explained Randall.
Misha LaMarche, is another person who is running for public assistance to try to support her family in her Dallas, Texas apartment.
A judge gave him until August to show the necessary documents that allow him to receive help paying his rent of $ 810 a month, according to the Dallas News.
She lost her job at a restaurant early in the pandemic and has been struggling with other temporary jobs to survive.
"I have to take care of my mother and my daughter, so I don't have time to be negative," he said. "I know that things are going to work out. I'm going to do my part and let things happen," LaMarche told Texan newspaper.
New York to expedite assistance for tenants with late rent payments
July 27, 202102: 28
Despite the inability of the White House and Congress to extend the federal measure, the moratorium will remain in place at least until the end of the year in New Jersey, New York, California, Illinois, Maryland and Washington, DC
Initially, Congress allocated about $ 47 billion in aid, which was to go to tenants with late rent payments.
It is federal money that in some cases is given to the states, or to the counties, or to the cities for each to distribute to the tenants who request it.
[Ending the eviction moratorium may exacerbate the pandemic and harm millions of Latinos]
But as of June, states and local governments had only distributed about $ 3 billion out of the first $ 25 billion tranche.
Some states like New York have given out practically nothing, while several have only approved a few million dollars.
To learn more about how to access these aids, learn more about the eviction process, how to find a lawyer to help you defend yourself in eviction court, SEE our guide to questions, answers and tools.
