Correction

In the print version of this article, it states that Housing Justice Now is the group solely responsible for tracking evictions and hosting court watching sessions. However, Forsyth Court Support is actually the group responsible for tracking this data and running the court watching sessions. This information has been updated in the online version of this article.

On Dec. 11 around 2:30 p.m., the sound of Christmas music filled the air outside the Forsyth County Government Center as 10 activists from Housing Justice Now, Hate Out of Winston, and Triad Abolition Project protested the eviction hearings of over 60 people in less than two weeks before the Christmas holiday.

HJN volunteer Rachael Fern was dressed as Santa Claus as she held a sign that read END EVICTIONS NOW and rang a bell each time cars passed by, while HJN and TAP volunteer Sara Hines repeated on a megaphone the phrase: There is a disconnect between the privileges of the few and the needs of the many.

Activists protesting last Fridays en masse eviction court hearings criticized government officials for continuing to allow housing displacement of many Forsyth County/Winston-Salem families and for not addressing what is to come in early 2021.

In this two-part series, YES! Weekly will outline the concerns of activists, discuss the findings of a 2014-2018 case study addressing housing loss in Forsyth County, as well as report local government officials responses to criticisms from activists and whether or not they could (or would) implement the studys policy recommendations.

If you think about how the governor put out an order restricting the number of people you can gather, at the same time, they are summoning 60 plus families to come here at 2 p.m. and go into that building and get evicted, said Fern outside of the government center last Friday. We are about to see a tidal wave [of evictions] in Forsyth County.

Displaced in Forsyth

In September, the Future of Property Rights program of New America, a D.C.-based progressive think-tank, teamed up with researchers from Wake Forest University and Winston-Salem State University to release their findings of a study called, Displaced in America.

The study attempts to answer the questions: Where is forced displacement most acute? Why does housing loss occur? Who is most at risk? And what happens to people after they lose their homes?

In doing so, it aims to help municipal leaders better understand where the pandemic might exacerbate already established patterns of housing loss.

According to the executive summary of the Displaced in America report, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the effects of stagnant wages, the lack of affordable housing, insufficient federal housing assistance, and discriminatory policies that contribute to housing loss.

The findings of the study also assert that emergency measures such as eviction and foreclosure moratoriums may prevent people from losing housing in the short term; however, those measures alone would not address the systemic policies and economic factors that lead people to lose their homes.

Evictions and foreclosures persistently affect the same areas and communities, the executive summary states. While shock events like the 2008 foreclosure crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic add to the volume of housing loss, these surges often follow familiar patterns: the people and places most vulnerable to housing loss during steady-state periods are often the ones who experience it most acutely in times of crisis.

By identifying and examining which places have traditionally experienced the most acute housing loss, we can predict where future housing loss will occur and who will be impacted, and direct resources to prevent the harm before it proliferates.

In Displaced in America, New America and its partners visualized the scale and breadth of displacement across the United States through a National Housing Loss Index, which ranks U.S. counties based on their combined eviction and foreclosure rates. Additionally, it took a closer look at three census tract-level displacement case study locations: Forsyth County(Winston-Salem); Marion County, Indiana (Indianapolis); and Maricopa County, Arizona (Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa).

In the Displaced in Forsyth case study, researchers interviewed government officials, housing advocates, real estate developers, journalists, lawyers, service providers, and community members to determine who housing displacement mostly affects, how it occurs, and what happens after people are displaced.

However, in the midst of completing this research, the world changed, the introduction states. As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across America, it rapidly became clear that we would release this report at a time when millions of Americans are without jobs and at risk of losing their housing. This report became more than a way to show historic housing loss, but a tool city leaders could use to better predict where the hardest-hit neighborhoods of their city may be.

Based on examining data from 2014-2018, Displaced in Forsyth found that residents experience acute housing loss at a rate of 2.6%, the county ranks 89th worst housing loss in the nation (of more than 2,200 counties measured) and the 10th worst of the 50 North Carolina counties for which we have data. The eviction rate for those years was 4.4% (12,276 households), and the foreclosure rate was 1% (6,221 households), however foreclosure rates jump to 3-6% in East Winston and the Southeastern region.

This case study found that evictions primarily affect minority populations and households living below the poverty line; some of the highest eviction rates (13%) are concentrated to the east of downtown and East Winston. Each year, 9.6% of residents in the East Winston census tracts lose their homes.

A few of these tracts lie directly to the east of U.S. Route 52, while others lie between Smith-Reynolds Airport, the Wake Forest University athletic stadiums, and the local fairground.

It also found that August had the highest average number of evictions (256) and that when evictions go to court, tenants often lose.

Evictions in Forsyth County often exceed 3,000 per year, but only 200 cases or so receive pro-bono legal representation.

Forsyth County also has 1,524 heirs properties, which is the fifth-highest in North Carolina.

Heirs property is passed down through generations outside of the formal probate process and often lacks clear title. Disproportionately present in Black communities, this form of property ownership exposes owners to significant vulnerability.

The case study findings also noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected North Carolinians, as 46% of households reporting that at least one person in their household has lost employment income since the pandemic began. In June, The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that Forsyth Countys unemployment rate doubled (to 8.2%) from June 2019.

In terms of who is most at risk, the findings of the case study showed that census tracts where residents lacked health insurance and relied on public transportation had higher rates of housing loss.

It also showed that predominately non-white households had higher eviction and foreclosure rates than predominately white households.

In particular, we found a strong positive relationship between the number of Black households in a census tract, and the rate of mortgage foreclosures. Predominantly Latinx census tracts also showed higher rates of evictions and foreclosures than white census tracts, but the relationship was not nearly as strong as for Black households.

As for the question of why people are losing their homes in Forsyth County, the study attributed the affordable housing crunch, in particular, Winston-Salems 16,244-unit shortage of affordable rental housing for extremely low-income families. Households that earn less than 30% area median income can afford an apartment for $464 in monthly rent, but the fair-market rate for a two-bedroom apartment in the city is $729.

Perpetually low wages also contribute to housing loss, as noted by a county official: 5.5% of rent increase versus 30% decrease in wages for county residents.

And, of course, gentrification and concentrated poverty resulting from the redevelopment of low-income neighborhoods also contributed to displacement and housing loss.

Thus, the Displaced in Forsyth case study found that the consequences of displacement included neighborhood neglect, in which foreclosed homes resulted in $170,000 of losses in tax value to the surrounding communities; over 6,000 vacant Winston-Salem properties in the North East, East, and Southeast wards of Winston-Salem; and in those same wards, 50% of rental units reporting a pattern of habitability issues.

Another consequence of displacement is education disparity, as the studys key informants estimated that, at the countys lowest-performing schools, between 20-50% of students finished the school year at a different school than the one they started. The lack of accessible public transportation is also a consequence of displacement, as many low-income residents who dont own a car tend to live near public transportation, which limits their ability to commute to work, school, grocery stores and doctors appointments.

Overcrowding and homelessness are also consequences which according to the case study, is well documented within Forsyth County, and particularly dangerous in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. Families unable to find community support after displacement can end up in a shelter, in their car, or on the street.

EVICTIONS KILL'

Its Christmas, and we are evicting people; its a pandemic, and we are evicting people, Fern said. Its well documented that as evictions go up, so do coronavirus deaths. That is what we are doing in Forsyth County we are killing people unnecessarily.

In her experience advocating this year for housing justice, Fern has noticed that not much, if any, attention is being paid to housing displacement in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County by elected officials and by those who are unaffected.

Thats why she decided to make people pay attention through visually-striking cosplays during protests. For instance, shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday, she portrayed the grim reaper, and on Dec. 11, she dressed as a not-so-jolly Santa Claus.

Its Christmas, and we are evicting people; its a pandemic, and we are evicting people, Fern said. Its well documented that as evictions go up, so do coronavirus deaths. That is what we are doing in Forsyth County we are killing people unnecessarily.

Ferns claim appears to be correct as a Vox article published the same day as the protest quotes that a recent study called, Expiring Eviction Moratoriums and COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality, confirms this.

Coincidentally, one of the studys seven co-authors is Wake Forest Universitys School of Law Visiting Professor Emily Benfer, who is also the chair of the American Bar Associations COVID-19 Task Force Committee on Eviction, co-creator of the COVID-19 Housing Policy Scorecard with the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, and principal investigator in a study of nationwide COVID-19 eviction moratoriums and housing policies.

According to that study, states that let eviction protections and moratoriums lapse saw an estimated 433,700 excess individuals contract COVID-19, and 10,700 people die from the virus.

According to the Vox article, this situation, nationally, is dire because as many as 40 million Americans could suffer in the coming months.

To make matters worse, on the day after Christmas, 14 million workers unemployment benefits are set to expire because, as of Dec. 15, Congress has yet to pass the second round of COVID-19 relief funds. All of this during the winter months and a pandemic with a historic death toll of 300,000.

In October, Fern provided YES! Weekly with data collected by Forsyth Court Support from June 22 to Oct. 9, that tracked eviction hearings in Forsyth County. This data found that near the end of June, there were 40 eviction hearings; in July, there were 517 eviction hearings; in August, there were 558 eviction hearings, and in September, there were 446 eviction hearings.

In an Oct. 9 email, HJN noted that according to data from WFDDs Eddie Garcia, from June 21, 2018, to Sept. 17, 2018, there were 961 summary ejectment hearings, meanwhile in 2020, Forsyth Court Support data shows that there were 1,377 over that same time period, which is a 43.3% increase this summer in eviction hearings in Winston-Salem.

According to the group's recent data, since June, the number of eviction hearings has reached over 2,000. Fern noted that this is roughly 10% of renter households in Winston-Salem.

Dec. 11 was the last day many in-person court cases would be in session before Chief Justice Cheri Beasley postponed most proceedings for 30 days starting Dec. 14 due to the recent spike in COVID cases. The Forsyth County Public Health Department reports that as of 2 p.m. on Dec. 15, there are 17,035 COVID cases in the county, 189 deaths, 250 new cases, and 3,372 new cases reported in the last two weeks, with 10.9% of people in North Carolina testing positive for the virus.

Fern has volunteered with Forsyth Court Support's court watch sessions since the summer, but at the beginning of December had to quit because she said the explosion of COVID cases in Forsyth County made it unsafe for her to continue. Fern said during her time watching hearings and standing outside protesting, she has witnessed people getting traumatized, especially children.

If I had to describe what I have been seeing in one word, it would be trauma.

What about the CDC Moratorium?

From Sept. 4 to the end of this month, the Center for Disease Control set a nationwide temporary moratorium on evictions.

Its been really hard for people to get protection under that order, Fern explained. People have really had to fight to be protected under that order and what little protection they had is about to go away.

North Carolina Legal Aid attorney Ed Sharp said in a phone interview on Oct. 9 that the CDC moratorium carries pretty severe criminal penalties for violating it either for the landlord or the tenant. Sharp said the University of North Carolina School of Government has sent out guidance to civil magistrates that the CDC moratorium holds legal weight until it doesnt, which will come on Dec. 31, when it expires.

If the landlord violates the CDC order and thereby commits a Federal crime, they should not be allowed to gain an advantage (that is, evicting somebody in civil court here in North Carolina) by committing this Federal crime, Sharp said, paraphrasing University of North Carolina School of Governments Dona Lewandowski.

At the end of October, Gov. Roy Cooper issued Executive Order 171, which was supposed to strengthen eviction protections under the CDC moratorium. According to the Governors website, the Order required landlords to make tenants aware of their rights under the CDC moratorium, set forth procedures to ensure protection for residential tenants, and clarified the CDC moratorium, so that it clearly applies to all North Carolinians who meet its eligibility criteria.

However, Sharp noted that the CDCs moratorium is not a blanket moratorium by any means. He noted that the moratorium does not invalidate a lease meaning tenants still must pay the rent it just prevents tenants from being thrown out on the streets and therefore, spreading COVID.

But in order to invoke these protections, Sharp noted that a tenant has to sign the CDC declaration, and it has to be truthful and many tenants arent able to sign it. He said some of the qualifications to truthfully sign is that tenants have to ask for rental assistance and have experienced a loss of income. Sharp cautioned that landlords and tenants would suffer greatly from the expiration of the CDC moratorium if they dont work together while it is still in place.

One of my biggest worries is that whenever the CDC order ends the bill will come due, so to speak, and they will have this enormous crisis of tenants being thrown out in the middle of winter with COVID still raging, Sharp said. It could be a disaster for tenants and landlords. If a tenant gets thrown out at that time, the landlord might suffer significant financial losses due to all of this. We could be looking at a real mess. What I am hoping happens instead is that tenants and landlords work together, while the CDC order is in place, to get rental assistance from whatever source, to get the landlords paid and get the tenants up to date and no longer facing evictions. The CDC order is potentially a time bomb. Everyone will suffer if it is not addressed.

However, volunteers with HJN are doubtful that the majority of local landlords (or slumlords, as they call them) have the emotional capacity to work empathetically with tenants especially since the City of Winston-Salems tenant-landlord mediation service doesnt require landlords to participate.

Fern wrote in a text message that she has personally worked with tenants who are technically protected under the CDC moratorium but are still getting evicted because landlords are bypassing the moratorium through other eviction methods, such as parking and pet violations.

The most common is holdover, which just means the landlord chooses not to renew the lease if the tenant is behind on rent and can successfully bypass the moratorium, Fern said. Im working with a 70-year-old disabled veteran (the guy we got the emergency order for) whose landlord did just that. The landlord said he is aware that given his age and health, his tenant could die on the streets this winter but [claimed], Im the victim here and have to protect myself. It cost him a total of $50 to have the Sheriff go and lock the tenant out. Without direct aid from the government, this is just a blood bath being fought between landlords and tenants, and the stakes are incredibly high for some folks.

(Part 2 will address the criticism of city and county officials, their responses, and whether or not they will consider implementing the Displaced in Forsyth policy recommendations.)

Originally posted here:

No home for the holidays: Activists, researchers say a 'tidal wave' of evictions is coming soon Part 1 - Yes! Weekly