Landlords finding ways to evict after getting rental aid

• Published date: 11 February 2022
• Publication title: The China Post

A day before she was due to be evicted in November from her Atlanta home, Shanelle King heard that she had been awarded about $15,000 in rental assistance. She could breathe again.

But then the 43-year-old hairdresser got a letter last month from her landlord saying the company was canceling her lease in March -- seven months early - without any explanation.

'I'm really pissed about it. I thought I would be comfortable again back in my home,' said King, whose work dried up during the pandemic and who now worries about finding another apartment she can afford. 'Here I am back up against the wall with no where to stay. I don't know what I am going to do.'

Although the $46.5 billion Emergency Rental Assistance Program has paid out tens of billions of dollars to help avert an eviction crisis, some tenants, like King, who received help are finding themselves threatened with eviction again - sometimes days after getting federal help. Many are finding it nearly impossible to find another affordable place to live.

'It is a Band-Aid. It was never envisioned as anything more than a Band-Aid,' Erin Willoughby, director of the Clayton Housing Legal Resource Center Atlanta, said of the program.

'It's not solving the underlying problem, which is a lack of affordable housing. People are on the hook for rents they cannot afford to pay,' she said. 'Simply finding something cheaper is not an option because there is not anything cheaper. People have to be housed somewhere.'

The National Housing Law Project, in a survey last fall of nearly 120 legal aid attorneys and civil rights advocates, found that 86% of respondents reported cases in which landlords either refused to take assistance or accepted the money and still moved to evict tenants. The survey also found a significant increase in cases of landlords lying in court to evict tenants and illegally locking them out.

'A number of issues could be described as issues related to landlord fraud … and a set of problems I would describe as loopholes within the … program that made it less effective to accomplish the goal,' said Natalie N. Maxwell, a senior attorney with the group.

National Apartment Association President and CEO Bob Pinnegar said the survey was not based on facts, adding that its members are doing everything they can to keep tenants in their homes, including lobbying to get rental assistance out faster.

'Skewed surveys aren't reflective of the entire situation. By and large the rental housing industry has gone to great...