{"id":1480,"date":"2020-12-08T21:26:47","date_gmt":"2020-12-08T21:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=135733"},"modified":"2020-12-08T21:26:47","modified_gmt":"2020-12-08T21:26:47","slug":"home-means-everything-campaigners-aim-to-stop-all-evictions-for-duration-of-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/08\/home-means-everything-campaigners-aim-to-stop-all-evictions-for-duration-of-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Home Means Everything’: Campaigners Aim to Stop All Evictions for Duration of Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

With the CDC’s national eviction moratorium set to expire <\/a>on December 31, the Stop Evictions Network in North Carolina launched a campaign<\/a> Tuesday to keep every person in the state safely housed for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic in an effort to avert a disastrous intensification of economic misery as well as Covid-19 infections.<\/p>\n

“The Covid-19 pandemic, a time when we should stay closer to home for our collective health, has threatened millions of people with housing insecurity and eventual homelessness.”
\u2014Stop Eviction Network<\/p>\n

An estimated 300,000 to 400,000 people in North Carolina are unable to pay their rent, according to a September report<\/a> from the National Council of State Housing Agencies. As a result of the expiration of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s emergency order halting some evictions, analysts are expecting an estimated 240,000 eviction filings across the state come January.<\/p>\n

“This is… a government failure,” said Jesse Hamilton McCoy II, supervising attorney at Duke Law’s Civil Justice Clinic. “We needed… relief systems that were going to provide rent supplementation so that the landlords would be able to get the money they need to cover their overhead, and the tenants wouldn’t continue to accrue deficits.”<\/p>\n

Instead, “what we’re doing essentially is kicking the can that we have continuously kicked throughout 2020, and we have now kicked it into January of 2021.”<\/p>\n

The Stop Evictions Network\u2014a broad coalition of organizations fighting to end evictions and advocating for affordable housing in North Carolina\u2014has two objectives.<\/p>\n

First, the groups want to put a stop to the evictions being enacted currently in violation of the CDC’s moratorium and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) executive order, issued in October, which requires landlords to give tenants the option of utilizing protections before initiating an eviction. <\/p>\n

And second, the coalition seeks to extend the eviction moratorium until the end of the pandemic. <\/p>\n

“Home means everything, but the Covid-19 pandemic, a time when we should stay closer to home for our collective health, has threatened millions of people with housing insecurity and eventual homelessness,” the Stop Evictions Network explained in a campaign video. “Let’s make housing a universally recognized human right.”<\/p>\n

\n