Emergency: Urgent Need For Help

Preface: I've been drafting this for a few weeks with the help of some friends of mine and things have been transpiring with my situation on a daily basis and will continue to do so as well. My situation is very fluid but I will post updates when time permits. I sincerely appreciate your time, Thank You!

Hello everyone,

My name is Matt Morin and life has found me in the difficult position of asking for help. As much as I have fought to not be in this position, I have nowhere else to turn. I hope by sharing this and my story some of you are willing to help an old friend or fellow neighbor come back from this devastating pandemic world. So here it goes, thank you in advance for listening!

I have been living and working as much as I am able through pandemic in the Houston area. I have been on the frontlines delivering food, home goods, and anything you can deliver since before the Stay at Home and as soon as they were lifted. I have worked non-stop; but due to the tough going during the pandemic and the work shortages I have struggled to make ends meet.

Knowing assistance was made available I applied early for rental assistance and have been fighting ever since. I do qualify and I have been approved, more than once; however due to long complicated “he said she said” conversations with property manager and the assistance companies and court proceedings, as well as the long time it takes money to be processed, I am now facing eviction. Additionally, I have large back payments due for many bills and fees with the courts for challenging the property manager and eviction notices.

I’m still fighting, but I need help to survive this fight. I will have to find somewhere new to live while I continue the fight and I have outstanding debt and future medical debt looming. I have been seriously injured over the course of the pandemic and am need of surgery; but currently that isn’t possible till I can solve the court and residency issues I am currently drowning in.

There is more to this, that was the short version. For those that like the details please read a play by play below. I am an open book in asking for help. If this is enough and you can help by donating or by sharing my Go Fund Me, I would really appreciate it. You are helping me survive right now, nothing is too small!

Thank you in advance! And I hope that once I survive this time we can reconnect and see each other once again!

Thanks,

FULL STORY

My apartments address is on the list that gives federal protection to renters as well as the other guidelines that Fannie Mae borrowers must adhere to and pass onto to their renters. I have an email from my property manager admitting that they do in fact have one of those loans. I am being sued for eviction for non-payment of rent by my landlord for the second time this year. The first case was dismissed because they failed to follow court guidelines, but Texas Rent Relief paid what I owed right before that case was dismissed anyway. Under Texas Eviction law to appeal an eviction when you can’t afford to pay court costs you must pay one month rent to the court as a bond just to get your case sent to the higher court to hear your appeal, then, you must pay rent to the court in accordance with your lease agreement, I did both for the first case. I later found out that I must file a motion to request funds to be withdrawn from the court registry so I can get that money back, so I did. That was in May. At the end of June, I still had not received my money back and I got an email from Texas Rent Relief saying I was qualified to file for more help for rent. Since I hadn’t gotten my money back yet, I applied for the additional funds which was at the end of June. The first time TRR paid it took a little over a month so I assumed it would take a little longer because it was an additional request. Months go by and no money back from the court and no money for rent from TRR. When the CDC order expired at the end of July, Fannie Mae extended eviction protection to renters in those properties detailed above. I informed my landlord and they said they were well within their rights to file an eviction as well as charge late fees. They filed for eviction again in September and my first court date was October 6 and that judge decided to evict even though I told him all the above information. To appeal my case, I paid other month’s rent to the court on October 19th and paid rent again to the court on November 1st. Four months’ rent tied up in the court which I could’ve used paying back every single one of my bills that I’m super behind on, especially the car my stepdad helped me get into last year because I certainly was not in the market to get into a car, but my other car was stolen and totaled on April 27, 2020, during stay-at-home orders. Everything I have mentioned is public record, all I ask is this: please respect my privacy, please do not contact my apartments or their parent company, and most certainly please do not contact the court in any way. All of which would and could be found as provocation and would be detrimental to my upcoming trial on November 29th. The stress I have from this prolonged situation which started in February is enough and I certainly do not need anymore. My 2 months’ rent from the first case has been granted back to me, but I have no idea when I’m going to get it because the clerks at the courthouse said it takes a while because it must go through accounting and then to the county comptroller’s office to authorize the funds to be released. My additional funds were approved this past Tuesday by TRR, they said payment would happen in approximately 2 weeks. Hopefully, it can all be posted before my trial, but the upcoming holiday might delay that from happening. TRR would’ve approved me for December and January, but my lease expires on December 1st, and they called to ask my landlord if that would be ok and they told them no, even though they sent me an email for a rate of an additional $400 on my current lease rent if I did stay past my lease date. One reason why my funding may have been delayed is an attorney representing my landlord filed a non-suit on September 3rd on the closed case saying they wanted to drop the suit against (after it had been dismissed back in April) because I had moved out of my apartment. Shortly after, I went to check my status on TRR for funding and it said to verify whether the additional funds requested were for arrears instead of rent and back payment of rent because I had moved out and I told them no, I was still in my apartment.

The money I am asking for is for the following: immediate moving expenses, temporary housing (because no one is going to rent to me with an upcoming eviction trial for nonpayment of rent) look for some type of permanent housing, and then be able to hire an attorney that can hopefully represent me at my trial or at the very least go back and try and clean everything up so I can have the ability to rent anywhere again.

Let me just say, I’m not trying to solve my case in the court of public opinion nor am I trying start a movement or anything like that at all, I simply just need help. And to those of you I have no for a very long time, and I haven’t been in touch with I haven’t been in touch with anyone, if I have unintentionally made people feel as though I didn’t care as much about our friendships and memories, I sincerely apologize. I was my mom’s caregiver for the last 8 years of her life and most of you know I was her only child. Losing my mom was the hardest thing I ever had to go through in my life. Hurricane Harvey 2 years after she passed didn’t make that experience any better, and you’ve probably heard a lot of Houstonians say that we haven’t even got back on our feet from Harvey, we mean it because I haven’t either. The only silver lining to all of this is: going into the holiday season of 2019 just before the pandemic, the storm clouds in my life started to dissipate and it was the first holiday season where I didn’t get down in the dumps like before. I got a sad at times but not all the way down and out. Then the pandemic hit, and the ice storm, and then most recently, Hurricane Nicholas came through our area, and I missed more time from work because of flooding for a few days.