When Jose closed the door to his two-bedroom apartment, he saw the same notice from management taped to every door of the complex. The first line: “Despite what you may have heard in the media, rent is still due and evictions will be filed.”

The memo was dated March 23, four days after Texas had declared a halt to evictions statewide and well into the Houston area’s novel coronavirus surge. Jose, who asked that his last name be withheld because he’s afraid of retaliation by the property manager, is only able to pay his share of April’s $1,017 rent because he’d stopped making car payments.

Jose has no idea how he’ll pay rent next month.

“If this is not over soon, definitely I will become homeless,” he said. He’s lived in his unit at the Ashford Westchase Apartments for four months.

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As the first of the month looms, tenants who found themselves suddenly unemployed as the novel coronavirus devastates the economy are left unable to pay rent. Landlords worry that without the expected rent revenue, they won’t be able to pay their own bills.

Some states — including Texas — have temporarily stopped evictions from going forward in court. In Maryland, no landlord can evict a tenant who can prove that their nonpayment of rent is directly related to the coronavirus. The city of Austin gave tenants an additional 60 days to pay rent.

But there is no rent measure in Houston, where 55 percent of the city’s occupied housing unit are inhabited by renters. And the Texas order has no allowance for coronavirus-imposed economic conditions like Maryland’s. It still allows landlords to file eviction cases, but they won’t be heard in court until the order lifts on April 19.

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The notice on Jose’s door at the Ashford Westchase Apartments wasn’t meant to be a threat, said property manager Emerich Esqueda. It’s just explaining the fine print.

While Jose worries where he will live as the pandemic rages, Esqueda worries what happens to him without the rent to pay his salary.

“Long story short, we expect to see a lot of evictions,” Esqueda said. “I think they may take advantage of the situation.”

Educating tenants

Jack Yetiv is so proud of the notice he sent to tenants in his three multifamily complexes that he thinks it should be made free to anyone who wants to use it.

Yetiv, a retired doctor-turned-lawyer-turned-landlord, sent a 12-point notice to each tenant on March 25, the day after Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo issued a stay-at-home order.

“… you MUST PAY YOUR RENT and other charges as you always have,” the memo began. “NOTHING in Judge Hidalgo’s order says anyone gets free rent — just like you do not expect to go to Kroger and get free food.”

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Notices like Yetiv’s have gone out all around the country as landlords anticipated rent payment issues. They’ve also heard the mixed communications from state and local governments and misleading statements at the federal level (President Donald Trump erroneously said he ordered the Department of Housing and Urban Development to suspend all evictions; the order only applied to certain mortgages).

“It’s my attempt to educate our residents,” Yetiv said. “What they heard was, ‘They’re suspending evictions. If there’s no evictions, there’s no rent.’ But if people don’t pay the rent, how am I gonna pay the electric?”

Yetiv asked tenants who think they’ll have difficulty to reach out (point 10). He can give them maintenance to do around the property or sign what he calls a “voluntary lien”: He holds onto something of value (a TV, a wedding ring) until rent is paid.

Point 9 offers the option of prepayment if the tenant cannot follow the advice from Point 8 to save ahead: “If that is not a realistic option, and you have no other method to put money away, we will accept PREPAYMENTS of your rent so that you are ahead on your rent in future months if your income drops.”

Yetiv said: “I know there’s people that are terrible money managers. If they prepay, that money is safe. It won’t go away. It doesn’t go to an alcohol habit.”

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At Villa de Cancun Apartments, management sent a notice notice shorter than Yetiv’s to remind tenants that rent is due by the third day of the month, with late fees to follow. An office staffer deferred comment to a manager; no one responded to messages left in the following days.

“Nothing has changed despite recent news,” the notice read. “KEEP IN MIND WE CAN AND WILL FILE EVICTION IF RENT IS NOT PAID ON TIME.”

Rick Guttman, who sent out a notice to his nine properties warning tenants that a nonpayment of rent would trigger an eviction filing and a credit agency notification, said he doesn’t want to speculate what would happen if he didn’t get enough rent checks.

“We have all of our expenses that are not stopping,” he said. “I don’t have anything in writing providing leniency for us.”

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Melissa Gallegos, 35, feels like she can’t do anything but give leniency. She’s known her tenants for two decades. The family of six has rented the house she grew up in since 2015, when her father died. They have been behind since Hurricane Harvey.

“All our savings, they already gone,” said Xochitl Valadez, who rents Gallegos’s home. “We just started running behind, behind, behind — everything. With this situation, everything, we’re running more behind than we used to be.”

Gallegos’ husband is out of work because of coronavirus. She worries about paying her own bills.

“I have had a lot of people tell me you need to kick them out,” Gallegos said. “But I can’t do that to them. Especially with the kids.”

Facing homelessness

Before the coronavirus crisis, Jose had worked as a full-time Uber driver. This is his third week without work, because people have been afraid to use rideshares. He has a few hundred dollars left for food. His roommate has a fever.

“It made me sad because these people are thinking only in money,” said Jose, who is from El Salvador and has lived in Houston for 20 years. “They are not taking in consideration that we are having hard days.”

The sudden crisis is devastating for renters who were already living paycheck-to-paycheck.

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Gina Baptiste, 40, is a single mother of two daughters, 18 and 11, living in Fort Worth. She had a history of late payments on her two-bedroom apartment but hadn’t been evicted. (Amy Cox, the property’s portfolio manager, wrote in an email that the company tried “helping our residents through tough times.”)

She can pay only $850 — half her rent. She was let go in mid-March. Her apartment complex requires documentation for a payment plan. Her old boss, she said, won’t provide it: She said she was paid off the books.

“Clearly, this is well outside of our control and seems odd, at best,” wrote Cox. “We are open to accepting a payment plan if she provides adequate documentation.”

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Cox added: “We have heard many reporters, advocates, etc. try to make the apartment industry look like bad people. That’s not a new theme by any stretch, but the dull roar continues to get louder.”

Cox and the management team gave Baptiste another option: Leave by March 31, and they would not file for eviction. She does not know where she would go.

“If you are not working right now or about to start, then it seems like that is a personal choice to not work,” Cox wrote in a March 29 email to Baptiste. “If that is an incorrect assumption, then please let me know.”

Baptiste has been applying, she said. She felt like she was being blamed for losing her job.

Usually her apartment is happy: Her girls drag her into TikTok dances (she’s terrible) and both of them come relax with her in bed. The fridge is covered with family pictures, takeout menus and academic awards.

“I have kids and, like, you can’t be homeless with children,” she said. She started to cry. “How can you look your kids in the face and say you might not have anywhere to go?”

sarah.smith@chron.com