Bernice Thomas’ apartment was nothing fancy.
Cinder block walls, two bedrooms, one bathroom and 739-square-feet for her, her husband and her grandchildren. But Tampa Park Apartments near Ybor City was home, until she was evicted by the owners in October. Now, she’s living with a friend of the family, in a three-bedroom apartment housing 11 people. She could be kicked out any moment because of the crowding. She’s in East Tampa now, which is further away from her work.
“It’s made my entire life much more difficult,” she says.
Earlier this year, COVID-19 hit 55-year-old Thomas and her family hard. She’s the breadwinner of the family, and lost her job in April. On top of losing income, she contracted coronavirus, and had to quarantine for two weeks. She says that her property manager put up flyers while she was quarantining, which informed her neighbors that she had the virus.
“Everyone was scared of me, even though I was doing the right thing and staying away,” Thomas says. “I don’t know why they had to do that.”
Thomas wasn’t paying rent since she lost her job, she admits that. She couldn’t afford it.
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The owners of Tampa Park Apartments had already informed her and everyone else that they needed to be out of their homes by Nov. 1, because developers purchased the property. Thomas got a new job and started saving to pay her backed rent, but still lived in fear of what would come next.
In May, the Tampa Bay Times reported that the buyer of 12 of the roughly 18 acres of Tampa Park is BluePearl Specialty & Emergency Pet Hospital co-founder Darryl Shaw. Shaw is an investor in the Times. Three days after Times reporters revealed that Shaw was the buyer, the Times editorial board wrote that the sale was “a critical link to a vibrant downtown” adding that the move was “good news for residents and the city alike” and that “The deal could enable hundreds of residents to find better living conditions.”
In a Monday email to CL, Tori Boyd, the relocation manager hired by Shaw, said that a relocation team was hired to assist with housing referrals, counseling and other services. Boyd said that Tampa Park residents were offered $1,500 in financial assistance to help pay for security deposits, first and last month’s rent, and setting up new utilities, adding that Shaw helped about 85% of the residents with their moving and gave financial assistance to about 75% of the residents. "Moving costs, including boxes, were [also] covered," Boyd wrote. "Security deposits were refunded in full. Many [got] back as much as $1,500."
In October, Governor Ron DeSantis lifted the eviction ban in Florida, which protected those affected economically by COVID-19 from winding up without a roof over their heads.
As soon as the ban was lifted, Tampa Park owners S. Kay Andrews and James Harrell—who will make millions of dollars from the sale of an apartment complex with an estimated market value of about $6.26 million, according to the Hillsborough County Property Appraiser's Office—took action against everyone who owed rent and those with expired leases.
The Times reported that hired security showed up on October 3 to evict people. Usually, the police help enforce evictions, but they could not, because no eviction paperwork had been filed through the courts. According to the Times, police characterized the eviction process as a “civil dispute” and did not get involved. Some people were not at home for work or other reasons when the evictors changed the locks on their homes, thus trapping their belongings inside.
When Creative Loafing Tampa Bay reached out to Tampa Park Apartments property manager Yolanda Amos, who oversaw the evictions, she said, “No comment on my side.”
Bernice has applied to two other apartment complexes. She listed Tampa Park Apartments as her previous landlords, and one of the leasing agents told her that her application was denied because she got a bad review from the property manager.
“The fact that these are subsidized units being evicted during a pandemic makes this an even more grave situation than usual,” Tom DiFiore, who works as team leader of the housing unit at Bay Area Legal Services, told CL. “The health risk being posed by evicting people at this time makes this extra hard to swallow.”
DiFiore’s seen eviction filing numbers rise dramatically during the pandemic, especially when the ban was lifted by DeSantis. He says that from March to July, there were 160 eviction filings in Hillsborough County. From August to September, there were 650. As of October 20, there were an estimated 40-45 eviction filings a day, which means that there were over 1,200 eviction filings for the month of October.
He points out that the changing of locks on tenant’s units at Tampa Park Apartments may have violated section five of Florida statute 83.67, which describes prohibited practices of landlords in Florida.
“A landlord of any dwelling unit governed by this part shall not remove the outside doors, locks, roof, walls, or windows of the unit except for purposes of maintenance, repair, or replacement...” The statute reads.
Despite this, DiFiore predicts that the evictions will increase in November in December as more landlords move to evict, despite what the legalities and the risks may be.
Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera spends a lot of time on tenant’s issues, and wants more resources for renters.
“Tragedies and challenges like this are a stark reminder that people were dealing with a crisis before COVID-19, but it’s become worse. In hurricane terms, if they were dealing with a category two before, it’s a category five now,” the councilman says. “Unemployment has tripled in some areas and we have a housing crisis on our hands. The job of the city of Tampa on these issues is to try to fill in the areas where federal and state aid leaves people with gaps.”
The problem, according to Viera, is that the gaps in relief from the state and federal level are massive. He says the failure of the Trump administration to provide relief beyond the CARES Act, and the lack of protection of citizens from the state level has left people in a position where they could go hungry or homeless. “The cause of human dignity has to be on the minds of the government,” says Viera.
In Hillsborough County, COVID-19 is far from defeated. After the lifting of restrictions by Governor DeSantis, cases have steadily increased. Some call this the “third wave”, but experts such as Dr. Anthony Fauci—the nation's top infectious disease expert—say that we have yet to finish the first wave of infections, the first wave just never stopped growing. The reason that Center for Disease Control guidelines encourage letting tenants stay in place until at least the end of the year is to protect communities from COVID-19 spread that comes with displacement. However, tenants must provide a signed declaration to their landlord, stating that they fall under the situations protected by the CDC.
Bernice Thomas is still trying to make her way back to a normal life. She’s working in St. Petersburg 40 hours a week. On a day with good traffic, it’s about a 45-minute drive each way from East Tampa. The crowded house makes resting difficult, and although she tries to stay positive, she can’t help but be upset with her situation.
“I feel like they owe us a lot, more than I explain, for the way they treated us,” she says.
UPDATED: 11/16/20 9:30 p.m. Updated with comment from Tori Boyd, the relocation manager hired by Shaw.
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