When Ari isn’t performing at the local theater, you can find him spending time with his brother, sister-in-law, and nephew down the street. The family has called Berwyn home for decades and doesn’t have any plans to leave, which made the eviction notice taped to Ari’s door even more concerning.
Ari had moved into senior housing three months prior to receiving the eviction notice. It was perfectly situated a few blocks from his family, and he liked his neighbors. Even better, he’d connected with a local organization that said they would pay the first three months of his rent because of his Social Security Disability Insurance.
“June, July, and August were taken care of, and I was on cloud nine. I was ready to start paying in September,” Ari said.
Yet, when September rolled around, Ari got a phone call saying there had been a mistake with the funding application, and he wouldn’t receive the money for his rent. He attempted the remedy the situation, but he didn’t have the money to pay for his back rent, and his landlord filed an eviction.
“It wasn’t my fault that things didn’t work out and now I’m being asked to pay three months’ back rent, when all I had was September. They were going to make me homeless,” Ari said.
Ari immediately reached out to LCBH, who had helped him after his apartment complex was sold to a developer a few years ago. We quickly connected him with LCBH Staff Attorney, Antoinette Bolz, who helped negotiate a settlement with Ari’s landlord.
“At that point, I’d secured a new place to go and, technically, could move out earlier, so I said to Antoinette, ‘What if we offer that I go ahead and move out, if they promise that they will seal the case and take the eviction off my record?’ And that’s what we wound up doing,” Ari said.
Soon after, Antoinette called to let Ari know his case was sealed and could no longer appear on his rental history. The same day, he was approved for his new apartment, where he still lives.
“It was such a joy to hear that it was over. I’d been looking at all this unfairness and wondering, ‘what am I going to do?’ After Antoinette called me, she proved that there still is fairness in some places,” Ari said.