Greensboro has long been home to one of the nation's highest eviction rates, and that was before the pandemic. On Friday, local responses to tenancy in the wake of COVID-19 will be the topic at a virtual panel discussion hosted by UNC-Greensboro's Center for Housing And Community Studies.
When COVID-19 began threatening the stability of local safeguards like Greensboro's Eviction Resolution Project — providing case management and limited financial and legal assistance — the North Carolina courts were among the first to intervene, placing a statewide moratorium on new evictions. The federal government's CARES Act soon followed.
Project Director Bruce Rich, who is organizing the panel discussion, says while the state did receive some funding to address housing instability, it wasn't enough. And the moratorium has since expired. Rich warns of what he calls an “eviction tsunami.”
“Many renters have been kept afloat by CARES Act supplemental unemployment insurance, but that's about to run out,” says Rich. “And in the meantime, the case count in North Carolina is skyrocketing.”
Rich says he hopes to see the swift passage of House Bill 1200 in the General Assembly which would allocate roughly $200 million toward housing support, and the HEROES Act in Washington, the second wave of Coronavirus relief funding, which is currently tied up in the Senate.
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