Chair Hudson asks Elizabeth Mackey about unpaid rent and landlord court action

Well, thank you for sharing.

I mean, that's why.

these personal experiences are so important so that folks can hear directly and really understand the challenges that people who are in the system are facing.

So thank you for sharing that.

And then, yes, I did want to ask, I know you mentioned five months it's been since your landlord has been paid.

Is that...

That's the current status?

If you could just press the button.

Press the button on the microphone, please.

Thank you.

And I want to make sure we do move on to the next panel.

Yes.

And I think home base, to me, is a joke.

No one should have to plead to go to home base for services and still have to wait to get the assistance.

That you need because they tell you to go to home base.

You go to home base and they have you wait.

Even if you want to move, why do I need to let you know I need to move when it's an emergency and you give them all the paperwork?

And it seemed like you bound into a system, locked into a system in order for you to move.

And you could have let them know, I found a place.

And you still seem like you got to show and prove that you need to move.

Like, I'm like, you know, have my own medical issues.

I provide them medical information, and they made me lose my apartment.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, a nice apartment from where I was living, you know, where I'm living at.

Because they needed this, they needed that.

And all this other crap.

So home base, I don't even understand why the city deals with them.

Because if I want to move and if I have a landlord that is willing to take my voucher, I shouldn't have to go to home base.

All I have to do is just go to HRA, who governs the city voucher, do the paperwork with them, and I should be out.

I should not be bounded under no other agency but HRA who pays the, who's supposed to be paying the landlord.

But for some reason when I get the leisure, they say that they send the checks to the landlord.

But I don't know.

That's what they say.

Then the landlord say that he don't get it.

And they say, well, the landlord is not cashing it.

So it's important that someone should be accountable.

I don't know if it's the landlord or the city.

But if they have these so-called portals, then we as tenants need to see the same thing that they see.

Yeah.

So at the end of the day, somebody is lying, but then the landlord got me going to court for the city responsibility.

Is that right?

No, it's not right.

So somewhere, somehow, I just need to be out.

You know, I do need the voucher, but I also need to move.

Because if the land...

Saying that he didn't get it, but they saying that he got it and he refused to not cash in the check.

So he's playing some form of game and maybe because I speak up for my tenants and everything.

So I don't know what game they're playing, but I want out.

I get it.

Thank you.