MONROE, La. — For the apartment complexes on the University of Louisiana Monroe campus, many students left early due to COVID-19. However, for the people who stayed, property managers worked with them for rent payments.
“We sent out emails showing them what grants were available or as far as unemployment what was going on, we tried to research that for them. A lot of the properties, we all worked with them trying to let them pay it out at a little bit at a time,” said Susan Schofield, Account Executive for Northeast Louisiana Apartment Association.
And the managers of other complexes in the area?
“But other property managers had people that just couldn’t pay rent, they lost their job…or they just chose not to,” said Schofield.
Over the past few months, apartment complexes couldn’t evict someone…until now. Schofield says the conventional properties that have government housing loans are suffering the most.
“The government housing you can’t file an eviction until July 25th, and you don’t get a court date until August 26th so that’s been the biggest issue,” said Schofield.
However, while it seems that some are still struggling to pay rent around the area, she’s hopeful for the future of rental properties.
“We seem to be reserving apartments and everybody in our area seems to be doing fine with reserving apartments,” said Schofield.
Schofield says single housing with lower-income housing is being affected much more than the larger apartment complexes, but they’re doing everything they can to work with people living there to pay rent.
