PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) â Gabe Imondi, a 74-year-old landlord from Rhode Island, had come to court hoping to get his apartment back. He was tired of waiting for federal rental assistance and wondered aloud âwhat theyâre doing with that money?â
Hours later, Luis Vertentes, in a different case, was told by a judge he had three weeks to clear out of his one-bedroom apartment in nearby East Providence. The 43-year-old landscaper said he was four months behind on rent after being hospitalized for a time.
âIâm going to be homeless, all because of this pandemic,â Vertentes said. âI feel helpless, like I canât do anything even though I work and I got a full-time job.â
Associated Press
Tiara Burton stands outside a courthouse Monday in Virginia Beach, Va., where an eviction hearing was postponed after she qualified for rent relief. Previous Next
Tuesday, August 03, 2021 1:00 am
Evictions resume; wary tenants scramble
Americans find help slow to arrive, if at all
Associated Press
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island – Gabe Imondi, a 74-year-old landlord from Rhode Island, had come to court hoping to get his apartment back. He was tired of waiting for federal rental assistance and wondered aloud “what they re doing with that money?”
Hours later, Luis Vertentes, in a different case, was told by a judge he had three weeks to clear out of his one-bedroom apartment in nearby East Providence. The 43-year-old landscaper said he was four months behind on rent after being hospitalized for a time.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) â A federal freeze on most evictions enacted last year is scheduled to expire Saturday, after the Biden administration extended the original date by a month. The moratorium, put in place by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in September, was the only tool keeping millions of tenants in their homes. Many of them lost jobs during the coronavirus pandemic and had fallen months behind on their rent.
Landlords successfully challenged the order in court, arguing they also had bills to pay. They pointed out that tenants could access nearly $47 billion in federal money set aside to help pay rents and related expenses.
Updated August 2
With evictions resuming, tenants scramble for assistance
As of early July, about 3.6 million people in the U.S. were facing eviction in the next two months.
By MICHAEL CASEYAssociated Press
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Luis Vertentes, a tenant from East Providence, R.I., stands before Judge Walter Gorman during an eviction hearing on Monday, in Providence. Vertentes agreed to leave his residence, which he has not paid rent on in four months, in about three weeks. “I’m going to be homeless, all because of this pandemic,” he said. “I feel helpless, like I can’t do anything even though I work and I got a full-time job.” Charles Krupa/Associated Press
Historic amounts of rental assistance allocated by Congress had been expected to avert a crisis. But the distribution has been painfully slow: Only about $3 billion of the first tranche of $25 billion had been distributed through June by states and localities. A second amount of $21.5 billion will go to the states.
More than 15 million people live in households that owe as much as $20 billion to their landlords, according to the Aspen Institute. As of July 5, roughly 3.6 million people in the U.S. said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.