HENRICO COUNTY, Va. -- Brianne Pena has her hands full with two dogs, two jobs, and now, one eviction case she's fighting.
"I've never had to deal with any eviction. I've never had to deal with any problems with leasing offices in general," Pena said. "I've never had this problem."
Pena said she applied for COVID-19 rent relief funding after she caught the virus in December and was approved for financial assistance.
She told CBS6 that the complex is not honoring the rent relief money put toward her rent.
"Not being very transparent, not communicating," she said. "It's very mentally stressful, especially when you're talking about somebody's living situation."
Pena is one of the dozens of tenants living at Pointe at River City, formally AP 11 North, facing eviction. She, and many others who told CBS6 they were in a similar situation, made their case at Henrico General District Court Monday morning.
"I still walked out of the courtroom confused as to what was going on," Pena said. "They didn't give me the proper balance of what was owed, given that the rent relief was approved and a check was sent out."
Many of the tenants facing eviction told CBS6 they applied for federal rent relief before the May 15 deadline through Gov2Go.
Some tenants said the apartment complex either did not fill out its part of the application, so the money never came. Others, like Pena, said they were told they owe an outstanding balance that does not reflect that rent relief money being applied.
“Rental assistance was slow to respond, that was one thing. The other bigger problem is that there’s been a lot of confusion in terms of the landlord portion of the application for this particular community," said Christie Marra with the Virginia Poverty Law Center
“I have two clients with this landlord and what they’ve told me is when they’ve tried to submit their rent relief application, it was a complete mess because they changed landlords in the middle of the rent relief application," said Louisa Rich with Legal Aid Justice. "So one landlord, the prior landlord that left is still trying to claim that the rent relief should go to them, it’s kind of been lost in transition. I think rent relief is aware of this luckily so I think they’re trying to reroute the rent relief checks, but for those that already went through, we have heard of some people losing their rent relief checks and not getting the money they should’ve gotten as part of the help that was supposed to protect them when they lost their jobs because of coronavirus.”
Several cases were decided to be continued in September. Some tenants who appeared in court did not have documentation regarding their correspondence with their apartment complex. Those who did not appear in court received a default judgment, meaning the landlord could continue with evicting them.
The attorney representing 11 North did not have someone from the property present to give full evidence of how they notified tenants about evictions, payments, or rent relief applications, as well as how and when rent relief applications were filed.
“It is not normal for the plaintiff’s attorney not to have a witness present, and that was definitely unusual," Marra said.
Pena said she'll be able to pay whatever remaining balance is left before she moves out, but is worried about how this could impact her ability to rent moving forward.
“Definitely is my biggest worry, making sure that it doesn’t affect me in the long run, making sure whatever is actually owed is paid, when they can finally communicate with me, what is actually owed," she said. “I know a lot of people are trying to figure it out. I saw a lot of emotions today in the courtroom. Really heartbreaking. A lot of people don’t know what to do, next steps, definitely keep my prayers out for everybody in this neighborhood.”
