“God is a fair judge, a God who is angered by injustice every day.”
Psalm 7: 11
What frustrates and angers me the most today is that the eviction moratorium has ended and our representatives left without doing anything to remedy the situation for those who could lose their homes. What further angers me is finding out that a large portion of the money set aside for renters is just sitting there, unused for the most part, because the system makes it difficult to access it.
I have often heard from those who try to receive help from the funds we as citizens have set aside for their assistance that they are rejected at least three times before getting through the system. Imagine how many people give up on the first try. I have looked at some of those application forms and admit that I’m not sure I could fill them out, and I am at least of average intelligence. One woman told me that she had the social office fill out the forms for her, saying she could not read it, and that worked. But why make things so difficult?
Why is it that our bureaucracy makes it so difficult for people to get the help that is their right? We have set aside this money to help them and it is theirs. But officious people put so many roadblocks in their way, as if holding on to the money and not giving it to people is their goal. As if refusing help is better than helping. It is no excuse to blame the occasional person who takes advantage of the system. Too many who really need this help are left without help out of fear of helping the undeserving.
Now, the eviction moratorium has ended and millions of people are threatened today. The last thing we need is more homeless people. We should be putting everyone into homes. The only cure for homelessness is homes, not watching from the sidelines as more people are evicted. It turns out that some states failed to get pandemic aid to renters and to landlords promptly. Some spent it on other things. And some never set up an assistance program in the first place. This is injustice writ large.
One woman, threatened with eviction discovered this: “She recently learned the landlord had accepted nearly $20,000 for back rent and several months of prospective rent. He has agreed to dismiss the eviction lawsuit he’d filed.” See article HERE. So, this is another concern. How many other landlords are accepting money and still planning to evict renters? We have a right to be suspicious.
I am glad that “Several states were praised for programs that ran well. Illinois, Indiana, Oregon and Washington state were among more than a dozen that reported distributing every dollar of the rental assistance set aside from the Coronavirus Relief Fund by March 31.” Too many other states failed. See the article above.
Our representatives need to ensure that the money set aside to help people actually gets to them. The pandemic is raging again, surging because of this delta variant. This is no time to be putting people out of their homes. Do unto others what you want done for you. I am betting that everyone reading this blog post would want a home to live in if they found themselves homeless. And we need to stop worrying if someone is worthy of help or not. That is not our concern. Our concern is to be just, merciful, and kind to all. Our concern is to make sure that all people are treated with respect and dignity, deserving or not.
My beloved ones in Christ, we should be angry, and speak out. Encourage your representatives to get to work making sure that people are housed, not evicted. Support your local associations that are working for justice in all housing concerns. Tell your local governments you don’t want to see people sleeping in tents, in cars, in doorways, on park benches, and other public places. Tell them you want government to put people in homes for this is the only just solution and the best solution for the general welfare of us all. We are an extremely rich country with plenty of funds to house everyone, if we only had the will to do it. We certainly have the will to spend an exorbitant amount on weapons of war.
Bishop Kedda
Bishop Kedda 