JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A 22-year-old mother and her four-year-old daughter spent Wednesday packing up their apartment after being given a final notice of eviction on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Emails obtained by Action News Jax show she was approved to receive assistance to help pay rent and avoid eviction, only for the local organization that runs the program to rescind its approval days later. <\/p>\n
\u201cI just don\u2019t want to throw her stuff away,\u201d said Jaela Jackson. \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know. At least I\u2019ve got my car.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jaela argued it should never have come to this. <\/p>\n
She provided us with an email sent on March 12th by LJD Jewish Family & Community Services, the local organization that runs Jacksonville\u2019s Eviction Diversion Program.<\/p>\n
In it, the organization\u2019s Eviction Coordinator stated, \u201cWe have approved Jaela Jackson for rental assistance\u201d.<\/p>\n
Jackson told us her apartment complex had applied for her to receive assistance back in February, and at the time, she owed about $2,000 for past due rent.<\/p>\n
Around the same time, she got a new job as an electrician\u2019s assistant and began working overtime to help pay other bills, expecting she\u2019d be getting help with the rent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just doing everything I need to do so I could be okay, cause they told me that they were going to pay it,\u201d said Jackson.<\/p>\n
But four days after being told she was approved, another email came through rescinding that approval.<\/p>\n
That email explained, \u201cDuring Final Review before cutting the check, we determined that their income from their new job is more than our income limits\u201d.<\/p>\n
But Jackson claimed the organization knew about that job throughout her whole application process.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I got punished for getting a job,\u201d said Jackson.<\/p>\n
Jackson said she\u2019s been trying to work with LJD Jewish Family & Community Services to get help, but to little avail.<\/p>\n
And now, the two grand she initially owed has ballooned to over six-and-a-half, as unpaid rent and legal fees tied to her eviction continued to mount.<\/p>\n
Jackson said the organization has offered to cover the legal fees, but only if she covers the remaining $5,500 owed in rent.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s money she claimed she doesn\u2019t have, as she lost her job in early March – the same job that caused her to be denied assistance.<\/p>\n
When we spoke with Jackson on Wednesday afternoon, she said she\u2019s telling her daughter they\u2019re on their way to their \u201cnew home\u201d. <\/p>\n
But unless something changes, the young mother will be faced with the reality that she and her daughter don\u2019t know where or when they\u2019ll next sleep with a roof over their heads.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t really thought about it, cause I\u2019m just going through a lot right now,\u201d said Jackson. \u201cSo, I just don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Action News Jax emailed LJD Jewish Family & Community Services and directly texted at least two employees at the organization who have been working with Jackson to try to get their side of the story.<\/p>\n
Since first reaching out at 9 o\u2019clock Tuesday night, we have not heard back.<\/p>\n
Jackson was given until 6:50 PM on Wednesday to vacate her apartment.<\/p>\n
Jaela Jackson has set up a GoFundMe campaign. If you would like to donate, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A 22-year-old mother and her four-year-old daughter spent Wednesday packing up their apartment after being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[982,101504,1130,116,118,117,971,970,101505,101507,101508,101506,634,53388,28552],"class_list":{"0":"post-224630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action_news","9":"tag-jack_jake_stofan","10":"tag-jackson","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","13":"tag-jacksonville-news","14":"tag-jake","15":"tag-jake_stoan","16":"tag-jayla","17":"tag-jayla_jackson","18":"tag-ljd","19":"tag-ljd_jewish_family_and_community_services","20":"tag-local","21":"tag-oak_hill","22":"tag-u"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}