Coronavirus fallout: Some who struggled early in crisis are on brink, others find hope

An out-of-work travel agent whose mortgage payments were deferred now worries about losing her house. A couple can’t pay their bills after the $600 unemployment bonus ran out. An idled maintenance supervisor has fallen further behind on rent.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, many people have edged closer to financial calamity, while others have finally landed full- or part-time jobs.

Here are some of their stories:

Naperville woman: ‘I feel OK’

In Naperville, Rachel Metcalfe, 23, is starting to see her health and her finances emerge from the depths.

In early spring, she had been hospitalized after contracting what she believes was COVID-19. She also had been furloughed from her social media marketing job and couldn’t pay an $11,000 bill for a hospital stay to cover expenses including a coronavirus test, which is supposed to be free. Metcalfe had launched a GoFundMe effort to cover her blood work, X-rays and CT scan.

She still has minor chest pain symptoms, she says, but her health has improved.

Metcalfe has gotten a part-time job as a retail assistant manager that pays $5 an hour less than what she made at her old full-time job. But she might be able to go back to her social media job in the coming weeks as her employer’s offices reopen.

“All around, I feel OK,” she said. “Not great, not bad, but in that middle ground.”

Her boyfriend moved in over the summer, which helps offset some of her rent. She got a $1,200 stimulus check and $600-a-week unemployment boost, which helped her make ends meet.

“On my own, I would have been evicted,” Metcalfe said.

The hospital later dismissed the $11,000 bill, so she refunded the GoFundMe money to everyone who stepped in to help.

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Florida woman: ‘I can’t do it’

Julie Antoine’s struggles to stay afloat have only grown more dire as she copes with the ups and downs of federal assistance and a financial support base that becomes wobblier by the month. Antoine, 59, lost her job as a corporate travel agent in mid-March after a nearly 40-year career, as business trips became a thing of the past.

The Gainesville, Florida, resident turned to friends and family to pay phone, Internet and cable bills until she finally received unemployment benefits in the spring, including the extra $600 a week from the federal government.

In August, the $600 had expired, forcing her to make do with $275 in state weekly benefits and to again rely on friends and relatives.

In mid-August, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reinstating half of the $600 benefit, and Antoine got an additional $1,200 — covering four weeks of payments — the following month.

In late September, though, Antoine’s regular state benefits expired. Her certification for food stamps also ran out.

She has applied for extensions to both programs and expects to be approved but for now has no income. As for the help from friends and family, “That has kind of dwindled down,” the Saint Lucia native says. “You’re going from helping somebody to becoming a dependent.”

Her bills are paid through the end of October, and she stocked up on groceries by taking advantage of discounts. But Antoine hopes her unemployment benefits and food stamps start flowing again before her bills are due at the end of the month.

She has continued to do without the occasional takeout dinners and home furnishing purchases she enjoyed when the $600 federal aid was coming in. Recently, she canceled her $5-a-month Amazon music subscription.

Even if the government assistance is reinstated, Antoine worries about the future. The state jobless benefits are set to expire permanently in December. And a 12-month deferral of her $1,600 monthly mortgage payment ends in February.

“If I don’t get a job between now and December, I will be put out of my house,” she says.

Recently, her heart rate spiked while she was sitting at her desk, requiring a trip to an emergency room.

“It is emotionally taxing,” she says.

Antoine says she has steadily applied for travel agent jobs, but “nothing has come through.”

California woman: Back to square one

For Eleanore Fernandez of Milpitas, California, near San Jose, spring was tough, and fall has felt like a reprise after some summer relief.

In the early days of the pandemic, Fernandez, who is in her late 40s, had been laid off from her job at a catering company, and her husband lost his freelance jobs doing sound production. To save money, the couple and their 13-year-old daughter ate less meat, clicked off lights to lower their electric bill and canceled their HBO subscription.

Since then, her husband has picked up some short-term contract work. Fernandez used a portion of her $1,200 stimulus check to pay bills and shore up savings. It took months for the couple to receive unemployment benefits, but the aid, including the extra $600 a week, briefly helped cover their expenses.

But now they’re back to surviving on much leaner unemployment checks. She’s getting $900 a month, while her husband gets about half that.

With the $600 supplement, “I could pay my full rent … and was comfortable paying utilities on time.”

Now, they’re paying just a quarter of their rent and juggling other bills.

“I’m trying to stagger payments and also make the minimum payment on things like my water bill or even my garbage bill,” she says. Utility companies “have been understanding because of what’s been going on.

“We still don’t have full cable, and, at this point now, I’m thinking we may have to cut it off. But I feel like that’s a first-world problem.’’

Fernandez continues to look for work.

“It’s just hard,’’ she says. “I feel like, these days, because there are so many people out of work … I’m getting lowballed when we get to the point where they ask how much money I want in terms of salary. I feel like it keeps getting lower and lower.’’

Congress not delivering a new relief package is frustrating, she says.

“I just feel like they’re a little out of touch,” she says. “I don’t think it’s logical or rational when people need the help.’

“If Joe Biden is elected, I’ll feel a lot better,” she says. “I just feel if people can just follow a leader who will tell them the truth and be honest with them, maybe we can get through this a lot quicker, out of this tunnel that we’re all stuck in.’’

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California man: ‘We’re in a world of hurt’

Christopher Bolei’s financial hole has gotten deeper.

In July, Bolei had been struggling to find work for months and couldn’t afford rent after losing his job as a maintenance supervisor for a real estate management company. Since then, he has fallen further behind on his rent payments, and fears he’ll be evicted once rent moratoriums expire early next year.

The $8,700 in back rent Bolei owed in July has swelled to $13,000. He has been missing his nearly $3,000 monthly rent payment due to medical costs for his partner, who has lupus, an autoimmune disease, and faces $30,000 in medication costs this year to treat a brain injury from a car accident.

State benefits haven’t been enough to help him make ends meet after the $600 federal bonus went away in late July. In California, state unemployment maxes out at $450 a week.

“Congress needs to reinstate the extra $600 in unemployment aid so that jobless Americans can pay their bills before millions of us end up in the street because we’re evicted,” says Bolei, 63.

He got an extra $300 in weekly payments retroactive to Aug. 1 after Trump’s executive action, but it ended after six weeks.

Once the rent moratoriums expire in January, he’ll owe even more, he says. Bolei is paying 25% of his rent so he won’t get evicted. But he doesn’t know how he’ll pay his full balance in a lump sum once it comes due early next year since job prospects remain scarce.

“We’re in a world of hurt,” Bolei says. “We’ve been abandoned and left alone. This isn’t how America works. It’s a scary time in this country.”

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Texas woman: Clawing all the way back

Charlotte Mahler, 52, of Plano, Texas, is one of the fortunate Americans who, after being laid off because of the pandemic, landed a new job, transferring her skills from an industry pummeled by the crisis to one that has been buoyed by it.

In early April, Mahler lost her job as a recruiter for a staffing firm that had her working with an aerospace company, an industry that was devastated when the outbreak sharply curtailed air travel.

In mid-May, Mahler hadn’t yet gotten unemployment checks because of overwhelmed computer and phone systems, so she drew down her savings to pay rent and utilities.

She also canceled her cable and Netflix subscriptions and switched to cheaper generic products at the grocery store. Monthly visits to the hairdresser were out.

Even after her jobless benefits arrived, including the $600 federal bonus, Mahler maintained her more frugal lifestyle and applied for about 20 recruiting jobs a week. She also day-traded stocks and worked temporary recruiting jobs.

“I knew unemployment wouldn’t last forever,” she says.

In July, Mahler’s former staffing firm told her a recruiting job was available at a Life Sciences company called MilliporeSigma that has ramped up hiring. The company makes equipment and services for manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, biotech, health testing and industrial products, items that have had strong demand during the health crisis. She started work in early August, just after the $600 unemployment bonus ended.

“It was just such a relief,” she says.

Mahler resumed her cable and Netflix subscriptions and her monthly visits to the hairdresser and is again shopping for clothes and eating out.

“I started slowly going back to things,” she says. “It feels great.”

Contributing: Dalvin Brown

Read more at USA Today.