Julie Ray lives in a mobile home in Pearl River, La., with her two teenage daughters, Jerilynn and Jasmine. Her mother, Barbara, used to live there too, but she had a stroke before the pandemic hit and had to move to a nursing home. In May, she died there, from COVID-19.
Julie Ray lost her job at a local grocery store in March. Now she can’t pay her $700 a month rent and is in danger of eviction.
She was approved for state-sponsored rental assistance, but had trouble getting her landlord to fill out the paperwork, she said in a phone interview, so that never happened. Then, Ray, 42, got an eviction notice. She went to court and a federal moratorium on evictions–put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sept. 4–saved her.
The CDC moratorium was slated to expire at the end of this month, but Congress agreed Sunday to extend it until Jan. 31. Even with that action, Ray will still face eviction–just a month later than she expected. Stateline’s calls and emails to her landlord, Red Oaks Mobile Home Park, have gone unanswered.