North Carolinians Against Evictions
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Groups in Charlotte, Raleigh, and Winston-Salem joined a national uprising calling for eviction courts to be closed and rent and mortgages to be canceled through the pandemic.
Those affected by the crisis, such as Nicole Cureton, shared their story at the demonstrations in North Carolina. Cureton, who is not currently working, spoke at the Charlotte event. She said her landlord gave her a notice to vacate the property she’s renting because he’s selling it.
“As I said, I’m in court this Friday fighting for my human rights, fighting for my children, fighting for my family so we won’t get evicted,” Cureton says. “I will not stop fighting until we have won. We have all won.”
Nakitta Long in Winston-Salem says her landlord told her she had to leave her home by October.
“I lost my job due to COVID-19 and my landlord decided to put the house up for auction and I have two children, 17 and 4, and I have been struggling to pay the bills, keep everything caught up,” Long says. “We are not lazy. We're not looking for a handout. We just want to live.”
Action N.C. organized the event in Charlotte. Apryl Lewis, who is the co-founder of Action N.C.’s Tenant Organizing Resource Center, says the eviction moratorium and the freeze on rent and mortgages is necessary to prevent homelessness and small businesses from going bankrupt.
“We want people to stay at home and stay safe, if they don’t have a home, they can’t stay at home,” Lewis says.
In addition, she’s advocating for the passage of House Bill 1200 in North Carolina, which will allocate $200,000,000 to the coronavirus relief fund to help struggling homeowners and renters.
Greater Accountability from Richmond Federal Reserve Bank
The streets of Richmond’s financial district echoed with calls for accountability last week as activists gathered outside the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond to call for better transparency and representation following a series of scandals among the nation’s banking leadership.
Among the speeches and chants from those present at the Oct. 19 rally, which included members of SPACEs in Action and Action NC, was a demand that the Richmond Federal Reserve establish a better process to select its board of direc- tors and presidents that ensures greater public involvement and a more diverse leadership.
“It is of urgent importance that the public members of the board actually represent the public,” said Apryl Lewis of Action NC. “We are here to demand representation for our community.”
SPACEs in Action and Action NC are part of the Center for Popular Democracy’s national Fed Up Campaign, which has been working to ensure the Federal Reserve’s actions are in the economic interests of all in the country, from full employment for working families to increasing wages.
Read more: https://richmondfreepress.com/news/2021/oct/28/activists-demand-greater-public-accountability-ric/
The Trump administration announced a new moratorium on evictions that goes into effect nationwide on Friday and will last through December, but some local activists say that without financial relief to help renters climb out of the hole caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, a moratorium is not enough.
Housing rights activists with the Tenant Organizing Resource Center (TORC) delivered their own eviction notices to members of the North Carolina General Assembly (NCGA) on Thursday afternoon, as community members spoke about their own experiences with eviction and protested the NCGA’s ongoing failure to provide adequate relief during the biggest eviction crisis in U.S. history. On Wednesday, the group rallied in front of the Mecklenburg County Courthouse for the same cause.
A statewide moratorium on evictions began in March and ended on June 20. In Mecklenburg County, eviction proceedings, known as summary ejectment hearings, resumed in July 20. The new order does not offer retroactive protections to people who have been evicted between the end of the first moratorium and the beginning of the next one, which is being enacted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). It’s estimated that 542,000 renter households in North Carolina are experiencing a rent shortfall.
read more: https://qcnerve.com/the-eviction-moratorium-what-to-know-if-youre-a-tenant-at-risk/
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – The line of cars circling the Mecklenburg County Courthouse Tuesday evening are drivers demanding rent and mortgage payments be put on pause because of the pandemic.
This is a nationwide movement to protect families against evictions.
The protest was strategically scheduled for Tuesday because it’s the first of the month – a time when rent is due for a lot of people.
Instead of rent, this group of people wants relief for the people not receiving paycheck because of job loss tied to the pandemic.