SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — According to the National Low Income Coalition website, more than 600,000 Floridians who rent are behind on their payments.

The real problem many are now seeing is that they are unable to find new housing options because of poor credit reports.

Christine Benvenutui is currently looking for a new place to live. The search isn’t the problem. She has been frequently paying application fees to complexes. Unfortunately, she is always denied.

For Benvenutui, 2020 could not have gone worse. The pandemic forced her to quit her job at Wendy’s due to underlying health conditions, she later got COVID-19, and now is months from being homeless.

“I’m afraid,” she said from her home. “If it was me alone I would live anywhere, but I have a 16 year old.” 

This past December, Benvenutui, a single mother, received an eviction notice. Friends helped pay her rent, but the eviction still shows as a negative mark on a credit report and in her rental history. It is a problem Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani said shouldn’t be held against her.

“Unless Congress takes specific actions to help hold folks harmless amongst this economic despair, and of course consider expungement policies at a state level, we are going to see folks continue to struggle to get a home over their heads,” Eskamani said.

For the last three months, Benvenutui has spent hundreds of dollars on rental applications looking for a new place to live, but the same problem keeps coming up.

“Cause of the credit and not paying rent,” she said. “Obviously they contact them (her landlord) to see my rent history.”

According to the Seminole County Housing Authority, they assist 950 families through HUD funding. They also say in the last year private landlords, as opposed to corporate property management companies, have been more receptive to accepting vouchers. 

“The voucher kind of adds a bit of an insurance policy,” Shannon Young the Executive Director for the Seminole County Housing Authority said. “If the family has had an income reduction, we are going to adjust their rent accordingly, so we basically make them whole if they lose their income.”

Before the pandemic, each voucher would be worth around $500-600 dollars. Currently, they are about $750-800 a month after an additional $400,000 dollars was provided by CARES Act Funding.

But for the thousands who can’t receive a voucher, Eskamani hopes a simple solution can help in the short term.

“If an eviction is the major reason why your credit score has been impacted, you should be able to seal and expunge that,” Eskamani says. “Because it occurred as no fault of your own.”

The pandemic so far has cost Benvenutui her job, her health, and in a few months she stands to lose her home.

According to the Seminole County Housing Authority they will open up assistance for 750 more families on April 12. Also, instead of trying to find an apartment at a traditional complex, experts suggest trying to work something out with a private landlord.