The mother of a disabled three-year-old has told how they are facing living in her car after her landlord almost doubled her rent and then started eviction proceedings - before the CDC issued a new eviction ban.
An moratorium on residential evictions that kept millions of people from being forced out of their homes lapsed on Saturday, and the Biden administration scrambled to issue a new extension on Tuesday.
Before the extension was brought in, Sheryl Chavez, 39, says she was given 30 days to leave her home of eights years in rural Edenton, North Carolina, after her landlord decided to raise the rent from $450 a month to $825.
Chavez, a former Correctional Sergeant for Pasquotank Correctional Institution, says mass migration to the area from urban COVID-19 hotspots in the last 18 months has pushed up rental prices to unaffordable levels.
She shares the home with her friend, Lefein Noel, 29, and son Allister, 3, who was born with severe damage to his nervous system.
'I feel hurt and scared,' Chavez told DailyMail.com. 'I rented from this lady for 8 years only for her to slip a letter in my mailbox. I don't know where I'm going to go if I have to leave.
'To be evicted like it's not a big deal is very hurtful, and not because rent is owed, but just to cash in on the great housing market.
'Because of the housing shortage and the demand for homes, landlords all over this region are evicting their tenants and putting the houses up for sale at far greater than their value.'
Without being able to find affordable housing within the area, Chavez says she risks living out of her car with her son.
In Edenton, North Carolina, Sheryl Chavez, 39, (pictured) was given 30 days to leave her home of eights years, after her landlord decided to raise the rent from $450 a month to $825 unexpectedly.
Chavez, a former Correctional Sergeant for Pasquotank Correctional Institution, shares the home with her friend, Lefein Noel, 29, and son Allister, 3, (pictured) who was born with severe damage to his nervous system.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday extended the eviction moratorium for 60 days, a move that risks being challenged in court and one that President Joe Biden admits may not be constitutional.
CDC director Rochelle Walensky signed an order that determined the 'evictions of tenants for failure to make rent or housing payments could be detrimental to public health control measures' to slow the spread of COVID, the agency announced.
The order expands the eviction moratorium until October 3 and applies to counties 'experience substantial and high levels' of COVID transmission.
The order will allow more time 'to further increase vaccination rates,' the CDC said, calling it an 'effective public health measure.'
'This moratorium is the right thing to do to keep people in their homes and out of congregate settings where COVID-19 spreads,' Walensky said. 'Such mass evictions and the attendant public health consequences would be very difficult to reverse.'
It will cover about 90 per cent of renters in the country, White House officials said.
More than 15 million people live in households that owe as much as $20 billion to their landlords, according to the Aspen Institute.
As of July 5, roughly 3.6 million people in the U.S. said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to the U.S. Census Bureau´s Household Pulse Survey.
It is not yet known if the new extension will cover Chavez and her family - or other tenants who found themselves in court facing eviction proceedings on Monday and Tuesday.
In Columbus, Ohio, Chelsea Rivera, 27, showed up at Franklin County court Monday, after receiving an eviction notice last month.
A single mom of three, Rivera is behind $2,988 in rent and
