Please Help Our Family Move After Being Scammed

Hello,

My name is Genetra Quick and I'm a wife and mother of 5, 2 sets of twins and a fifth. Two are 19 in school in Macon and the other three are 16 and 15. May 2022 we finally felt like our prayers had been answered. After being homeless in and out of hotels for four years we were given an opportunity with a program called Must Ministries to find a home. This was after an article was done on our family in the Marietta Daily Journal in December. We were put in a program called Tenant Based Rental Assistance (TBRA) that helped with a portion of our rent each month for a year and were told we could renew a 2nd year to give time for us to become self sufficient. I'm an Uber Eats Delivery Driver and sole provider for our family sometimes working over 70 hours a week just to get by. My husband Robert suffers from chronic pancreatitis which has kept him in and out of the hospital over 30 times and lost over 40 lbs. since we moved in the home. His health started taking a turn for the worse in September. It has been rough but this is the only job I could work that allowed the flexibility needed since we never know when he will have a flare up and need to be hospitalized. I still kept faith that through this program we would make it. Our lease was set to end on April 30, 2023. I contacted our caseworker who was fairly new in Feb. to see what would happen with our assistance. She was still learning about TBRA so she stated she would have to get back with me. Our landlord came to check on repairs in March that we needed since Jan. including roof repairs and squirrels making a nest in the wall behind our headboard. The didn't give any inclination that they weren't renewing our lease. About 30 days before our lease was set to end the landlords contacted Must Ministries and said they would not be renewing our lease. Must Ministries emailed us and stated we had 30 days to find a place to keep our assistance. This was not easy as TBRA is not Section 8 so a lot of landlords and Rental companies do not accept it. Right at the deadline we had found a home, the landlord filled out paperwork and the day before we were set to give her the deposit, our caseworker stated the home was Cherokee County instead of Cobb County. They kicked us out of the program and told us there was nothing they could do. We scrambled for two weeks trying every organization under the sun to get some type of assistance. Feeling defeated, we contacted Must Ministries and begged for another opportunity. They agreed to give us 2 more weeks. We jumped right back into looking for a home and found one. We did a self tour and the first thing we noticed was the key lock box on the door handle was broken but there was a new one on the other side which had a code we were given. We loved the home and we tried to look past that even though the landlord had no explanation. We asked the owner if we could meet in person and his response was "why?" He contacted our caseworker and advised her that he was holding the home for our family and ready to proceed with the next steps. We told our caseworker about the lockbox and the landlord questioning a meeting but she told us not to worry because he would have to show proof that he owned the home. We kept in touch with our caseworker and the landlord via text and email for a week. The landlord stood us up twice to meet, so our gut started saying this was a possible scam. The caseworker looked up the name of the owner on the tax assessor's website to find that it wasn't the same name as the person we had been talking to. We started sending her other homes that we had spoken with but she stated that since he was of Asian descent the name he gave us was probably his American name and that we didn't have time to add other homes. We stated our concerns and she said that if it turned out to be a scam it would fall on Must Ministries not us. The landlord sent over an application via email and application fee. This was strange because we had already filled one out for Zillow that included everything along with credit check and background check. We tried to reach out caseworker but she happened to be sick. A supervisor at Must Ministries contacted us and stated that he proved he owned the home and said to fill it out and send it to our Caseworker's email. We sent it and sent the app fee via CashApp since once again the landlord didn't want to meet in person after we asked. 2 days later our caseworker sent an email saying that the landlord never approved us for the home and that they needed a signed lease by 5pm or we would be out of the program. We immediately contacted her via phone and she said never had proof he was the owner, he didn't fill out any paperwork and that it may have been a scam but there was nothing she could do. She took us out of the program. We expressed from the beginning we felt this was a scam but Must Ministries kept pushing us to proceed. Now we have lost our assistance that would have helped us move. Our deposit that we would have received back from our landlord is not owed to us since we are still in the home. This was our deposit for a new place and moving money. We are expected to be out of the home no later than July 15, 2023 and because of this scam we have nowhere to go. Summer is very slow for me since a lot of kids and teachers choose to do Uber Eats. I'm barely holding it together between household needs, my husband's hospital stays and Dr. visits, mechanical issues with our car and the kids. Not to mention hospital bills since my husband doesn't have insurance. Our Central Air went out a month ago so we are cooling off with fans until we move. I know that this may be a hard time for many, but if you can donate anything to our situation we would be greatful! Our goal is to get moved out of this home,find a reasonable home, pay our rent and bills up for a while including hospital bills and get a dependable mode of transportation. This will help us start a road to rebuilding as we've been told by Doctors Chronic Pancreatitis will be a lifelong struggle. If you are not able to donate prayers are needed. Also share our fundraiser if you can. Thanks!!!