On this episode of HOME (Housing on Monday Evening), Isaac Sturgill, head of our housing practice group, gives an update on the Centers for Disease Control’s eviction moratorium, which has been extended to June 30, 2021. Isaac discusses who is protected by the moratorium, the types of evictions that are–and are not–covered by it, and what actions renters have to take to protect themselves from eviction.
RALEIGH—Legal Aid of North Carolina announced today that it has settled a housing discrimination complaint against Cypress Grove Apartments, a multifamily housing complex located in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Legal Aid’s Fair Housing Project filed the complaint on behalf of a 64-year-old tenant whose rental application was improperly denied because of Cypress Grove’s criminal history policy. The complaint alleged that Cypress Grove, based on its criminal history policy, illegally rejected the tenant’s rental application because of a 34-year-old felony assault conviction, in violation of the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA). Cypress Grove denied the allegations and asserted that its actions were not in violation of the FHA.
As a result of the conciliation agreement signed by the parties and approved by the North Carolina Human Relations Commission on November 12, 2020, Cypress Grove has adopted and implemented a new criminal history policy, substantially based on 2016 guidance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Jeffrey Dillman, co-director of the Fair Housing Project, noted that policies that reject all applicants with a criminal history can violate fair housing laws, stating “Cypress Grove Apartments is to be commended for adopting its new criminal history policy, which will review applicants’ individual situations rather than automatically rejecting all applicants with a criminal history.”
Legal Aid of North Carolina’s involvement in this litigation was made possible in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Fair Housing Initiatives Program.
# # #
Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Fair Housing Project works to eliminate housing discrimination and to ensure equal housing opportunity for all people through education, outreach, public policy initiatives, advocacy and enforcement. To learn more, visit fairhousingnc.org.
Media contact
Helen Hobson, Public Relations Associate, Legal Aid of North Carolina, helenh2@legalaidnc.org
Rocky Mount—Congratulations to the Community Economic Development (CED) team in our Wilson office, which was honored by OIC Rocky Mount at its recent Vision Award ceremony for the team’s work on racial justice and health equity in Rocky Mount.
OIC recognized the team for its contribution to the “Transforming Rocky Mount” cohort, a group comprised of Legal Aid attorneys, the NC Association of Community Development Corporations, OIC’s federally qualified health clinic, and the Steering Committee of the Community Academy, a grassroots group.
Our CED team addressed racial housing segregation, which the cohort had identified as a social determinant of health, by helping Rocky Mount residents address inequitable housing policies and change the way patients are treated at the OIC clinic.
Members of Legal Aid’s CED team in Wilson include Yolanda Taylor, managing attorney of our Wilson office; Alecia Amoo, CED and housing attorney; Jocelyn Bolton-Wilson, CED and housing attorney; and outreach paralegal India Silver.
Special thanks to David Sobie, a paralegal and data expert in our Winston-Salem office, who works with the IT team from the City of Rocky Mount and OIC to overlap our client data with OIC’s patient data.
RALEIGH—In a unanimous opinion published today (see below for link), the state Supreme Court overthrew the eviction of one of our clients, ruling that the local housing authority violated her lease agreement by failing to sufficiently explain why it evicted her.
While the ruling represents a victory for our client, it also strengthens the rights of all public housing tenants in North Carolina, making this a statewide win for housing justice worth celebrating.
Please join us in congratulating the Legal Aid attorneys who worked on this case and our co-counsel, Robinson Bradshaw attorneys Erik Zimmerman and Ethan White, for their advocacy.
The Legal Aid attorneys who worked on this case, which originated in our Raleigh office in 2018 but went on to involve advocates throughout our firm, are Celia Pistolis, the head of our appellate practice group; Andrew Cogdell, former head of our housing practice group, who retired in 2020; Darren Chester, a staff attorney in our Central Intake Unit; D.J. Dore, a supervising attorney in our Durham office; and Tommy Holderness, a supervising attorney in our Charlotte office’s housing unit.
We also thank partners Disability Rights NC, the NC Justice Center, NC Housing Coalition, NC Coalition to End Homelessness and the NC Coalition Against Domestic Violence, all of which submitted a joint amicus brief.
DURHAM—Richard Rothstein, the acclaimed author of The Color of Law (2017), will give a free public lecture via Zoom on Thursday, March 18, from 12-1 p.m.
Rothstein’s lecture will mark the launch of a speaker series organized by the Durham Eviction Diversion Program to raise funds for the new Durham Rental Assistance Fund, which will make direct payments to Durham tenants facing eviction for nonpayment of rent.
Lecture attendees who are able to do so are encouraged to make a donation to the new Durham Rental Assistance Fund. To donate, use our online donation form and select “Durham Rental Assistance Fund (Rothstein event)” from the “Donation Designation” drop-down menu. Those who donate $250 or more will receive a free copy of The Color Law by mail.
Following Rothstein’s lecture, Legal Aid advocates will lead a discussion of how attendees can support equality and justice in North Carolina.
Richard Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a Fellow at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He lives in California, where he is a Fellow of the Haas Institute at the University of California–Berkeley.
The Durham Eviction Diversion Program is a partnership of Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Durham office, the Civil Justice Clinic at Duke Law, Durham’s Department of Social Services, and the courts. The program receives critical financial support from the City of Durham, the Law Offices of James Scott Farrin and the North Carolina Bar Foundation. To learn more about the program, read this article from Legal Aid’s 2017 Annual Report.
Who: Richard Rothstein, author of The Color of Law
What: Free public lecture about government involvement in residential housing segregation in America
When: Thursday, March 18, 12-1 p.m.
Where: Zoom
Register: Click here to register on Zoom
Donate: To support the new Durham Rental Assistance Fund: