Florida renters being evicted while waiting for DCF’s Our Florida rental assistance program

TAMPA, Fla. — An I-Team investigation revealed renters being evicted while waiting on a slice of the $870 million allocated to the DCF’s Our Florida program to help pandemic-impacted tenants behind on their rent.

Sarasota resident Shamika Jenkins says the Our Florida program failed her and her 15-year-old daughter. The mother and child wound up living in their SUV after the moratorium expired on July 31. They were evicted two-and-a-half months after applying for rental assistance from Our Florida.

The program received $871 million in February to pay landlords on behalf of pandemic impacted renters.

Jenkins says that after she lost a full-time job in 2020 she worked several part-time jobs but it wasn’t enough to cover her rent. For two weeks I-Team Investigator Jackie Callaway asked the Department of Children and Families (DCF), which oversees the Our Florida program, for payout numbers.

The agency responded in an email: “DCF received $871 million as part of the ERA program to administer statewide. OUR Florida has paid out $23.2 million to 5,403 households.”

That amounts to less than 3% of the money received.

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