NPR
Merry Collins lost her job as a home health aide in Dallas after the coronavirus outbreak hit. Before she started getting $600 a week in extra federal unemployment benefits, she got behind on the rent. And in June her landlord took her to court to evict her. "The first day the courts opened here in Dallas," she says, "that's when they filed for eviction." Collins sounds winded. She has trouble breathing because she's been struggling to recover from COVID-19. She tested positive for the coronavirus. She's a single mom caring for a disabled teenage son who also became sick with the virus. Merry Collins has been fighting COVID-19 and the threat of eviction at the same time. She's been boxing up her belongings in her Dallas apartment and worries she could be evicted soon. "I'm scared," she says. But she says her landlord has kept trying to evict her, even though she has told the owner about her health problems and that she's now getting the unemployment benefits and could work out a plan to catch up on the rent. But now that the benefits are ending, Collins doesn't know what to do. Upward of 25 million Americans who've lost their jobs have been getting those extra unemployment benefits. That $600 per week has helped many to afford to pay their rent and other bills. But that federal money stops this weekend.