Photo not that of the actual client.
Housing subsidies are a critical lifeline for many low-income families, and they vary depending on the tenant’s income.
“Brianna” and her three children lived in an apartment complex where their share of the rent was $224 a month, with the Jacksonville Housing Authority paying the $376 remainder.
But in 2019, Brianna lost her Social Security income, leaving her with just $272 a month in child support.
She reported the loss of income to the Housing Authority, which reduced her rental share to $0 in August, retroactively effective on July 1.
In spite of receiving the full $600 rent from the Housing Authority, the landlord gave Brianna an eviction notice for nonpayment of rent and quickly followed that up by filing an eviction action in Court. The landlord attached old paperwork showing, incorrectly, that she owed $224 a month in rent. This meant that in order to defend herself, Brianna was required to deposit $448 with the Court Registry for the two months of rent it appeared she owed.
Brianna didn’t realize that to defend her case she could file a Motion to Determine Rent and attach the notices showing that her rent was $0. Unable to come up with the erroneous $448 fee, she was defaulted and received a final judgement of eviction, entitling the landlord to remove her and her children from their apartment.
Just before the eviction could be carried out, Brianna came to JALA, where her case was taken as an emergency intake. JALA housing attorneys quickly realized that the eviction was based on outdated information, that Brianna and her children should not have been evicted, and that she should not have been required to pay any rent into the Court Registry in order to defend her case in Court.
Just in time to stop the eviction from taking place, they contacted the landlord’s attorney and made him aware that his clients had provided him with outdated rent information and that the eviction he had filed was procedurally improper and based on erroneous documentation. He agreed to halt the immediate eviction threat.
This gave Brianna and her children the time they needed to relocate to another apartment, for which she had secured a new subsidized housing voucher. The parties agreed that she would have a month in which to transfer her voucher and move to a new apartment complex and that the eviction action would be dismissed by the landlord. Were it not for JALA’s help, Brianna and her children could have experienced homelessness while they waited to be able to move into their new apartment, but instead they were able to make a smooth and planned transition.
