A new study offers Black Americans some valuable tips on how to avoid eviction after the devastating impact of the coronavirus
By Penny Dickerson

The reality of rent and the inability to pay landlords remains a dilemma for scores of Americans financially impacted by the COVID-19 crisis that continues to hurl economic blows at low and middle-class residents, specifically people of color.
A resolution presented June 16 at a Miami-Dade County Board of County Commissioners meeting by the Honorable Chairwoman Audrey M. Edmonson amplified the dire straits of local residents. The resolution’s background stated that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Miami-Dade County was designated as one of the most cost-burdened jurisdictions for housing in the United States. Well over 50 percent of households in Miami-Dade County must pay 30 percent or more of their incomes for housing.
Edmonson’s resolute sought to direct the County’s attorney to create the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) for rental assistance grants to low- and moderate-income persons in Miami-Dade County that have lost income as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; allocating $10 million of funds that the County has received pursuant to the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) for the ERAP.
Beyond the fancy acronyms and municipal language, the bottom line is that $10 million in funding was available for distribution in June but is now placed on hold. Edmonson’s resolution was blocked when Commissioner Esteban “Steve” Bovo, exercised his right to block any legislation submitted late for the day’s agenda. The candidate for County mayor reportedly called, “the process rushed” and said he had questions about how the rental assistance would be managed and the allocation of federal funds.
Commissioner Bovo’s measure to stall will hold rental-relief funding beyond the County’s June 30 eviction extension into July and the board’s next meeting. More than 15,000 local renters will be affected, many of whom are Black American renters in jeopardy of losing their households.
With some 50 million people renting and many perhaps incurring job or income misfortune because of the crisis, renters in 11 American states and Puerto Rico are among those at the greatest risk of enduring housing instability, according to a new analysis by The Ascent.
A Motley Fool firm, The Ascent reviews financial products including credit cards, savings accounts, mortgages, and other items to help people make informed decisions on money matters.
The Ascent used government data to determine the areas with high jobless rates and where renters shell out a big percentage of their income. The report presents many reasons why such circumstances are a more bleak picture for renters than homeowners. Among them:
Renters could potentially be priced out by landlords who opt to raise the rent. In contrast, homeowners with fixed-rate mortgages won’t see their monthly payments rise. And homeowners who have fully purchased houses can live there as long as they pay the taxes.
Renters can’t take advantage of seeking home-equity loans or using cash equity from refinancing to help make ends meet through a job loss. Those are options for homeowners, and people renting typically make less money than homeowners.
The report also examined reasons why renters are more defenseless to the pandemic economy. They’ve already spent at least 30% of their incomes on housing, consisting of some 47% of renters. They now earn less than 30% of their area’s median income than before the pandemic. The Ascent says that number at last count was 11 million. Another pitfall: many renters live in states with high unemployment rates or low unemployment benefits. They also work in industries suffering from great job losses stemming from the pandemic such as tourism and hospitality.
Tips For Renters
But renters may do well to consider taking actions to help keep their households. Matt Frankel, a certified financial planner at The Ascent, offered tips to for renters potentially facing displacement.
What are steps renters can take to avoid the prospect of being evicted?
Why should renters take these steps now? What are the main downsides if they don’t?
If you’re falling behind on rent, the worst thing you can do is ignore the problem — even if you live in a state that has put a hold on evictions. That rent will come due eventually. Some people believe that a moratorium on evictions is the same thing as a temporary break from rent, but this is simply not the case.
According to Bloomberg.com, the end of state eviction moratoriums has exposed the limits of the protections for tenants at the local, state, and federal level. Under the CARES Act passed by Congress, for example, tenants who live in a property with a federally backed mortgage can’t be evicted. This protection supersedes any expiring state-level eviction moratorium — but only if the tenant knows that the CARES Act applies to their circumstances.
“Those tenants can’t be evicted — they can’t even get a notice of eviction until the end of July,” Marra says. “But there’s nothing put into place in many of these courts to enable a judge to routinely make sure that a landlord is testifying or swearing under oath that his property isn’t covered.”
“We’ve been telling people: You need to pay the rent when you can,” says Mark Grandich, litigation director at Lone Star Legal Aid. “There’s going to be a day of reckoning.”
The looming deluge of evictions involves complicated interactions with the justice system. For example, in Texas, landlords filed some 1,400 cases over the months during which the moratorium was in effect (many of which should not have been filed at all, under the CARES Act). During the interim, Texas only allowed evictions to proceed that involved illegal conduct — a valid concern for landlords, but also a concession to law enforcement, since jails were releasing prisoners and police were reluctant to make arrests.
Are there other options tenants facing financial hardship can take that you’d like to discuss? Would it make sense to open up a credit card or personal loan to pay rent?
If you have strong credit, a personal loan can be a useful tool for giving yourself financial flexibility during tough times, assuming you can afford the monthly payments. Some of the best personal lenders will make loans for as little as $2,000, so you don’t necessarily need to borrow a large amount of money to pursue this option. On the other hand, I generally discourage using credit cards to pay rent — not only do many landlords not take them, but interest rates tend to be far higher than with personal loans.
Blackenterprise and Bloomberg.com contributed to this report
DAYTONA BEACH — Money meant everything to York Zed Bodden. Human life meant nothing.
The convicted felon from Miami had dollar signs etched on his chest when Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers arrested him on Friday. He was the sole suspect in the murder of two Bethune-Cookman University students and attempted murder of a third. Bodden was also the rogue wheel in the trio’s roommate set-up. They offered him $200 to leave. But that wasn’t enough—Bodden insisted on $400.
Following a domestic dispute that morphed into a violent fist fight, the 27-year-old felon left the Carolina Club apartment in Daytona Beach and retrieved what police believed was a 9mm or .380 mini-revolver. Within minutes, he returned to the scene and shot in the head Timesha “A’lisa” Carswell, 21, and Diona McDonald, 19. Both were struck at point blank range. He then pumped six bullets into the face and jugular vein of Michael Parham, their 21-year-old male roommate who remains critically injured and clings to life.
Bodden fled the crime-scene and managed to evade a statewide manhunt. At 1 p.m. on Friday, Federal law enforcement agents arrested him at a North Miami apartment. The next day, his short-lived life ended. Prisoner #150020036 was found hanged in the K-28 section of the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami-Dade.
The three shooting victims were music majors from Michigan. McDonald is a Detroit native and Carswell and Parham are from the neighboring town of Inkster. Carswell was dating Bodden who authorities confirmed had been living with a Daytona Beach State College student just one week earlier. A criminal motivated by money, Bodden’s victims lived honorable lives that were the polar opposite:
“There were no signs of drugs or (drug) money anywhere in the house or in the student’s cars,” Chief Michael Chitwood of the City of Daytona Beach Police told the Miami Times. “Every one of those students were good young men and good young women who’ve never been in trouble with the law. They were good students and well respected at Cookman, so that’s what makes this really difficult. These are kids that had a brilliant future. These are kids that would be the future of what America is all about,” he added.
DOMESTIC DISPUTE
The bedrock of communication is rooted in conflict-resolution, but for college roommates who realize, “things weren’t working out,” even a voice of reason wasn’t enough to intervene.
“Micah and Timesha felt it wasn’t going to be pretty when they asked him [Bodden] to move out, so they asked their classmate Sidney Washington of Oklahoma if he could come over and lend some support,” said Chitwood.
“And they were right. When they asked him to leave, a big fight erupts between Micah and our shooter. It got so violent that Mr. Washington armed himself with a knife and you can see in the back room that somebody got shoved through the wall because all the sheet rock was busted, so it was a physical fist fight first.”
One female victim was found dead at a closet entrance. The other was on a bedroom floor. Parham was initially shot in a closet, but made his way to the kitchen floor. Washington tried to overtake the shooter, but ultimately dodged death by jumping through a first-floor window. He escaped harm.
FELONS WITH GUNS
The tragedy took place off-campus and almost five miles away from Bethune-Cookman. The university is an institutional jewel that is rich in Southern heritage and seeks to develop students who enter to learn and depart to serve. Carsell and McDonald both departed before their time and at the hands of a felon who never should have been in possession of a gun.
These brutal murders mark the ninth gun-related crime at Bethune-Cookman in the past seven months. Previously, nine students were wounded—this time two students and a shooter are dead. Amplified is Florida’s existence as a fledging “Gunshine state” that continues to search for law enforcement and criminal justice solutions to curb gun-related crimes.
“How do you stop somebody, especially in our society that is so pro-gun everything? You can’t stop ‘em from getting a gun. Especially here in Daytona Beach,” said Chief Chitwood. “All you gotta do is drive into a parking lot and see an F-150 flying the rebel flag and you can rest assure there’s a gun in there. He’s got his bumper sticker screaming ‘I love the NRA’ and ‘Long live the second amendment,’ and that’s what the bad guys break into. They get guns that way.”
BODDEN’S RAP SHEET
York Bodden may have died in a damp county jail, but he left a legacy of felony arrests and convictions that began eight years ago and continued in three-year increments.
• 10/26/2007 False Imprisonment.
• 10/26/2007 Felony Battery
• 04/16/2010 Burglary of an occupied dwelling
• 04/16/2010 Burglary of an unoccupied structure
• 09/17/2015 Capital Murder in the first-degree and aggravated assault.
• 09/19/2015 Felony Suicide
Had he not hanged himself, Chitwood’s recommendation would have been life in prison.
“Part of me is a death penalty advocate and part of me isn’t. He should (have) sat in that jail cell and rot the rest of his life away thinking of what he did to those families,” said Chitwood. “Whatever it was to be, his days of being free and able to hurt anyone else should be done….life in prison may even be too good.”
At press time, the Miami Times was unable to contact Bodden’s next of kin for comment.
Meanwhile Walter Clark, president and CEO of Special Consultant for African-American Government Employees (SCAAGE), is questioning why an inmate in transit ended up dying in police custody.