CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — As we look ahead to our seven month in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic folks across the Coastal Bend are still struggling when it comes to making that payment.
Moratorium on evictions are over, meaning landlords can again take past due tenants to court for eviction proceedings. That's where the federal government's Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act comes in to help alleviate some of the financial hardship.
The City of Corpus Christi received two million dollars in federal funding to help people pay their mortgage, rent and utility bills.
Most of that money has gone unused, so we set out to find out why.
Debra Arsuaga and Sandy Lerma work at the Corpus Christi Hope House. The non-profit organization, along with the Salvation Army were both charged with trying to hand out a total of $1.8 million in federal Cares Act funds.
Those monies are supposed to go to those people who lost their jobs or had their work hours reduced by the coronavirus pandemic. The idea was to be able to get those people CARES Act dollars to pay for their mortgage, rent and utilities.
"I think when it was announced, it was like t'here's all this money, go get help' but yeah that's not the situation," Arsuaga said.
The program was approved by City Council back on April 21. Hope House and the Salvation Army provided help with the application process and to make sure the money got to the folks who needed it the most.
But, since the program began in late April, the City's Housing and Community Development Director said that only $144,000 has been paid out to people out of the $1.8 million fund.
The director also said that a total of 332 families and individuals have been able to take advantage of the help.
"Two of the things we've come across of course are people are over income qualified and the second one is eviction moratoriums," Rudy Betancourt with the Corpus Christi Housing Community and Development said. "Now that those have lifted, we start seeing more folks coming in through the agencies to get that assistance."
Betancourt said that under the current HUD rules for the CARES Act, a family of four can't make more than $54,000 a year and be able to get mortgage assistance. 
The restrictive funding rules coupled with the eviction moratorium are believed to be the two main reasons more money hasn't been given out by the City.
Now that evictions are being processed again, Betancourt said more people have started coming for help. He said that for those people who don't meet the restrictive income guidelines ,there are other agencies that they will try to match those folks up with to get them the help they need.
The United Way of the Coastal Bend has helped location organizations assist residents.
While eviction cases are filed against tenants who've failed to pay rent, the same does not apply to certain tenants who are protected through the CARES Act.
This includes renters in homes covered by federally backed mortgages. Tenants covered under that federal moratorium have protections through December 31.