(Current
Landlord),
This email is not a
notice of intent to vacate.
This morning, I signed
into the website for (Current Building) and paid my August rent
of $1680.82 in cash from my checking account. As you know, I
had previously paid my rent portions for several months in advance. I
have attached a picture of the July 2020 statement from (Current Building),
showing a balance forward of $298.42 from my previous payments.
I have also attached screenshots showing today's payment and that I now have a
credit balance of $1979.24.
I am unquestionably
the sole and rightful occupant of unit #(Current Apartment) at (Current
Building) at least until August 31, 2020.
Without further delay,
please fill out, sign and date Metro Housing Boston's termination form and
email it to (Contact at Metro Housing Boston); I have a printer now, so you can
CC it to me and I'll add my signature. Please also complete and send to (Prospective
Landlord) at (Prospective Building) the landlord verification form that he sent
you over a week ago.
I have begun to make
inquiries about legal representation. I received an email with contact
information for lawyers this morning from (Housing Advocate), a housing
advocate who helped me move to (Current Building) last year. I hope that
intervention from an attorney won't be necessary.
Lena
______________
That's an email that I sent yesterday morning. It did result in the needed paperwork being sent so that the apartment where I'm trying to move can be processed by Metro Housing Boston. It also resulted in an email from my current landlord, directing me to the lawyer for my current apartment building for all additional correspondence about my housing.
Metro Housing Boston makes Section 8 tenants sign a Mutual Termination of Lease form with their current landlords BEFORE Metro Housing Boston will evaluate prospective apartments for the Section 8 tenants to move to. When I was first told by MHB that this was the process, I said "What if the prospective apartment doesn't work out," and was told "Just tell your current landlord to reinstate your lease."
Just tell my current landlord to reinstate my lease. And if my current landlord doesn't want to reinstate my lease, what then?
I'll never say that there doesn't need to be more affordable housing; I think it's always a good idea. However, I hope that everyone who has been ignoring and denying everything that I have been saying about the dysfunction of the systems that are supposed to help people obtain and maintain housing will stop acting as if the only problem is the lack of affordable housing.
My rent portion as a Section 8 tenant is $209/month, plus some utilities. Metro Housing Boston will pay for any days that I occupy the apartment while waiting for the next apartment to be approved, but my current landlord was sending me emails trying to construe my request for MHB's required termination form as my having given my notice and also telling me that the apartment couldn't be held because it was a market-rate apartment. So, I paid for the entire month of August out of pocket to end any dispute about my right to be here.
What do other Section 8 tenants do in this situation? I'll tell you what they do; they lose. They can't help losing because of a system that sets them up for failure and that does not acknowledge that they can and are targeted for mistreatment by landlords because they are Section 8 tenants.
Because millions of people now know who I am (Crazy Internet Lady), it is important that I live somewhere that has some kind of security system, and that I don't live on the first floor of a building where someone could break in through the window.
As for landlords and a public perception of welfare recipients; it's always the landlord who receives both the tenant's portion of the rent and the housing authority's portion of the rent, under the lawful Section 8 program which was created to help people be housed. The landlord is the one receiving the money, not the tenant, so why should a landlord treat a Section 8 tenant as if the Section 8 tenant is taking advantage of the landlord by being Section 8?
I can talk all day about my rights. In the end, in this situation, as in so many other situations, money had the megaphone. If I had had one penny less than I needed, I would still be in danger of being forced out of this apartment during a pandemic, for having tried to move somewhere else. An automatic payment system can't process a payment that is even a penny less than the required amount, and it was only my having made the payment that gave me traction in asking my current landlord yet again for my housing paperwork to be sent.
Speaking of trying to move somewhere else; I paid the $500 security deposit to apply at the other apartment over two weeks ago. If the prospective apartment is approved by Metro Housing Boston, I'll be paying for all the moving costs, on credit cards, because I have no cash.
I'm not complaining. I'm describing the expenses of poverty.
