GOVERNMENT
Renters who divert half of their income to rent are considered “severely cost burdened,” according to JCHS of Harvard. “When we first moved into the house [in mid-2023], we were not cost burdened at all,” Sandoval said March 18. “Everything was fine for a year and a half. Then, everything went to sh*t.” Landlords filed to evict 22 renters in Maricopa from November 2023 through January 2024, according to data released by the Western Pinal Justice Court in February. Then, during the same period a year later, there were 60 evictions. Scott Davis, the Justice Court’s spokesman, said “late summer is typically the heaviest time for landlords to file their cases … winter is usually the lightest.”
U.S. CHANGE IN INCOME LEFT OVER AFTER PAYING RENT (PERCENT)
I want to be able to help somebody who’s got two mortgages that they’re now paying because somebody’s not paying their rent. At the same time, I want to help somebody who’s having a rough time. I don’t want to see you living out of your car.” CONSTABLE BILL GRIFFIN, WESTERN PINAL COUNTY What’s a girl to do? During the week, it’s $240 a night at La Quinta Inn. On the weekends, anywhere from $275 to $300, Sandoval said. That’s about $8,000 every month for the cramped hotel room one-seventh the size of the Sandovals’ old house on Cahill Drive. On March 18, they were still living there. “I’m basically hemorrhaging money to stay here,” Sandoval said. All the Vrbo listings in Maricopa were sold out Feb. 27. On Airbnb, another short- term rental service, a house in Maricopa started at $15,764 for a month’s stay. Now, with a raw eviction on their record, no one will dare to rent to the family of 12. “We’re going to have to file bankruptcy before we can even look at renting again,” Sandoval said. Two bills were proposed in January to assist renters. Senate Bill 1178 would have limited the amount landlords could charge for late fees, while House Bill 2921 would have mandated landlords inform tenants at risk of eviction about the resources available at AZCourtHelp.org. Both Democrat-sponsored bills died on the second reading. Sandoval, a conservative, had hoped for their passage. “Arizona and the Phoenix metro area are what we would consider landlord-friendly jurisdictions,” said Stojanovic, the Princeton University evictions researcher. “This is a story that is affecting more than just the very bottom portions of the income distribution.” Either the laws will change, or the renting middle class will collapse under its own cost burden. In Maricopa, the question is this: Which will come first?
MATTRESS & FURNITURE
Source: Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University
the middle class,” said Stojanovic. In Maricopa, the middle class means virtually everyone. Balancing act Unromantic as delivering court documents may seem, Griffin carries a firearm. Some evictees, especially at apartments, are truculent, he said. For an hour, he recounted horror stories from his career — one had a humorous twist, another was heart-rending. But there was something different about the Sandovals. There was love in the air. The children were happy and well fed. Griffin, a one-time sheriff’s deputy in Orange County, Calif., had to make sure he was at the right house. “This is a family with young children. One of them is disabled. I understand what they’re going through,” Griffin said. “The [landlords] wanted $2,500 for them to go back inside to get their property. I said, ‘They’re charging you?’ I did not know that was allowed.” In an unlikely alignment, the conservative Republican Griffin agreed with the tenant’s rights attorneys that the Keller Williams franchise had lodged unreasonable storage fees against the Sandovals. March 4, the constable said he was still studying the law, having returned to Maricopa from a legal training program in Kingman the day prior. He had been seeing more cases like that — middle-class, two-parent households — and fewer of the capricious encounters to which he had at one time become accustomed in low- income Southern California in the 1980s and ’90s. “I want to be able to help somebody who’s got two mortgages that they’re now paying because somebody’s not paying their rent,” Griffin said. “At the same time, I want to help somebody who’s having a rough time. I don’t want to see you living out of your car.”
Maricopa set a record in January. What does that say of the months ahead? “I would say this is really starting to affect
SPECIAL DISCOUNTS ON BEAUTY REST BLACKS
MARICOPA’S DARKEST EVICTION
major point of tension within the household. It is believed this pressure contributed significantly to Thomas’s state of mind in the days leading up to his death. The medical examiner who reviewed Thomas’s case concluded his death was most likely a suicide, with the eviction serving as the primary motivating factor. Though the cause of death was a stab wound, a method rarely associated with suicides, the examiner suggested the stress of the eviction could’ve been enough to push Thomas into a state where he took his own life. Thomas had planned to become homeless, which might have deepened his despair, the landlord said. Read our full investigation into the backyard stabbing death of Makaiel Thomas:
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It’s been one year since Makaiel Thomas was found dead in the backyard of his Dirk Street rental home in the Maricopa Meadows. The death of Thomas
she knocked and received no response, she decided to enter through the back gate. As she turned the corner, she was met with the spine-tingling sight of Thomas’s decomposing body. The discovery was traumatic for Dos Marcos, who immediately contacted the authorities. Eviction notices had been posted on the home’s garage door for several days, the neighbors said. Thomas, who was living there with his brother, Ontwiel Lane, and other family members, had recently received a promotion at his QuikTrip job. Despite this, the family struggled financially since moving to Maricopa from Atlanta, with Lane losing his job at Amazon. The authorities noted the eviction had been a
days after his 24th birthday last April
has been shrouded in mystery. But one key factor that stood out in the investigation was the role his eviction played in his untimely demise. InMaricopa conducted an eight-month investigation into the death. It was the first time this journalist saw the word “eviction” on a death certificate. Mary Dos Marcos, the landlord, was the one who found Thomas’s body while serving an eviction notice to the occupants of the home. On the morning of April 29, she had arrived at the property to ensure the tenants were gone. When
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InMaricopa.com | April 2025
April 2025 | InMaricopa.com
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