A key worker responsible for preventing crime during the coronavirus outbreak is facing eviction after her landlord said her job meant she risked contaminating his family.

Shannon Harford, a probation officer in west London whose job involves meeting prisoners out on licence, albeit from behind a screen, has been given just over a month’s notice to leave the flat where she is a lodger. She said the decision showed “no empathy or compassion”.

The landlord gave her notice before Thursday night’s announcement by the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, of a full ban on evictions for the next three months.

Labour and renters’ campaign groups had accused the government of breaking its promise to protect people from evictions during the coronavirus epidemic after emergency legislation tabled on Monday evening only extended the notice period that landlords must give tenants before they can evict them from two months to three. It did not include a ban on evictions currently under way, but they have now been included in new measures.

Harford said on Friday she was nevertheless still leaving.

“It is horrible for someone to make you feel like you are contaminated,” Harford said. “In lockdown how am I supposed to do viewings or even move?

“I am aware of the health risk I am putting myself at by going to work,” she said. “I am passionate about keeping people safe. But that’s not how they [the landlord] seem to see it.”

Harford is a lodger in a shared two-bedroom flat, which is also used as a home office by one of the owners. She was told the owner was “reluctant to work in his office as you are still going to work to meet people … We therefore would want to give you notice to the end of April”.

“She would put us at risk in a way,” the landlord said, asking not to be named. “But I do understand the situation as well. It is not as if I am kicking her out on the street.” He said she could go and live with her boyfriend, but she countered that this was an unreasonable assumption to make and that their relationship was relatively new. She is, however, now planning to do just that.

Her case is an example of the confusion that has surrounded protections for renters. Jenrick had promised a “complete ban” on evictions “while this national emergency is taking place”, but the coronavirus bill issued on Monday stated that landlord proceedings to evict a statutory tenant may not be commenced during the period of the crisis “unless the notice period is a period of at least three months”.

The housing charity Shelter said this did not protect around 20,000 renters who could still be evicted in the next three months where eviction cases were already in progress in the courts.

“This means people trying to isolate or socially distance, and even some within the shielded group, could still lose their home in the coming weeks, and even more may face eviction by mid-June,” said Polly Neate, the charity’s chief executive.

On Thursday night, Jenrick bowed to pressure to widen the protections. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “The court service will suspend all ongoing housing possession action – this means that neither cases currently in, or any about to go in the system can progress to the stage where someone could be evicted.”

The suspension will initially last for 90 days, but can be extended, and will apply to all private and social renters in England and Wales, as well as those with mortgages and those with licences covered by the Protection from Eviction Act 1977.

Shelter said Jenrick deserved “a lot of credit for having listened and taken further action – as a result many thousands of people can now stay safe in their homes”.

“Now that we know courts will not take forward any evictions, it is crucial that renters know that they are protected and that they can stay put,” the charity said. “Even if they do receive an eviction notice they should not feel pressured to leave whilst this coronavirus crisis is ongoing.”

Harford, however, started moving out on Friday.