WASHINGTON, D.C. — With his two children, 44-year old Quentin Fayne has spent the last four days in a hotel room, paid for by his wife’s employer as she trains for a new job. Once her training is over, his family will return to a shelter and he’ll go back to his car where he’s been living for more than a month after losing his apartment. A confluence of events led to Fayne winding up homeless and jobless in the middle of a pandemic.

"My kids are in a shelter. My wife is in a shelter and I’m sleeping in a car. Everybody wants to put us on a list and nobody wants to help us," said Fayne.

"There’s too much politics in the politics and not enough service. These people are supposed to be serving us. We elected these people to do things for us and now they are not doing anything and doing a lot of talking. All of this talking is doing my family no good," he added. 

As Congress remains at a standstill on passing a new coronavirus relief package, many Americans continue to suffer from chronic job loss and housing insecurity. 

Fayne is not alone in his frustration in breaking through the bureaucracy to access emergency services. Congress has not passed a coronavirus relief package since March.

Housing advocates like the Homeless and Housing Coalition of Kentucky say Fayne’s situation could have been avoided by providing broad-based rent relief to renters and landlords, like the provisions passed by House Democrats in the $3 trillion HEROES Act in May. A $500 billion Republican-proposed stimulus package has also failed to advance.

"We have seen historic economic upheaval and we know the rental community, in particular, is subject to economic strain," said Paula Cino of the National Multifamily Housing Council.

While moratoriums on evictions for missed rent payments have been helpful for some, there have been widely documented loopholes like getting rid of tenants over lease violations.

"We need another round of COVID relief and we are calling for some broad brush strokes here, not just in the housing space, look at unemployment and all of the other funding sources that can help people and that will stabilize the housing sector as well," said Cino.

"We are hungry. We don’t have a roof over our heads. We need something to get us to the next steps," said Fayne.