Topic: Housing

Topic: Housing

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RALEIGH—Are you struggling to make your mortgage payments because of financial hardship related to the COVID-19 pandemic?

If so, you may qualify for “mortgage forbearance,” which means you may not have to make mortgage payments for a period of time—but you need to act fast. December 31 may be the last day to qualify.

You can qualify for mortgage forbearance even if you were behind on your mortgage payments before the COVID-19 pandemic, and even if your financial hardship is only indirectly related to the pandemic.

Getting mortgage forbearance is easy. Just contact your mortgage servicer—the company that you make mortgage payments to—and tell them that you are experiencing financial hardship related to the COVID pandemic, and that you want to get a forbearance on mortgage payments. You will also need to tell them how long you want the forbearance to last.

If you qualify, you can receive mortgage forbearance for an initial period of up to 180 days, plus an additional 180 days if you continue to experience financial hardship.

If you need help requesting a forbearance from your mortgage servicer, or your mortgage servicer tells you that you are not eligible for a forbearance, we may be able to help. Call our toll-free helpline at 1-866-219-5262.

COVID-related mortgage forbearance is available to struggling homeowners because of the CARES Act, a federal law enacted soon after the start of the pandemic.

Topic: Housing

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RALEIGH—Douglas Matthew Gurkins, 34, a Greenville resident, has been sentenced to 28 months in federal prison for using racial slurs against and threatening the lives of a Black American family, consisting of a mother and her four children—a criminal violation of the federal Fair Housing Act. At the sentencing hearing, other Black American tenants who had been victimized by Mr. Gurkins in the same manner shared their stories with the court.

The sentencing is the latest development in a years-long and still ongoing legal effort launched by Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Fair Housing Project against Mr. Gurkins and others on behalf of another Black American couple.

The U.S. Department of Justice, which prosecuted the case, announced the sentencing in a press release on November 23, 2020.

In August 2019, Legal Aid’s Fair Housing Project and the law firm of Brancart & Brancart filed a federal civil lawsuit against Mr. Gurkins; the owner of the property, who is also Mr. Gurkins’ aunt; the company hired to manage the property; and one of the management company’s employees.

In 2017, Legal Aid’s clients began renting one half of a duplex in Greenville owned by Mr. Gurkins’ aunt. Mr. Gurkins lived in the other half.

The complaint alleges that soon after the couple moved in, Mr. Gurkins launched a campaign of racial harassment against them, repeatedly addressing them by using the “N-word”—sometimes in front of their minor grandchildren—and threatening them with physical violence.

The couple allege they pleaded with Gurkins’ aunt and the property manager to do something about him, but no one intervened or even investigated their complaints. Instead, according to the suit, the defendants attempted to evict the couple from the property.

In the lawsuit, it is alleged that Mr. Gurkins’ racist behavior and the failure of the others to do anything about it violated the federal Fair Housing Act. The defendants have all denied the allegations. The case is scheduled to go to trial in 2021.

“We are proud that justice is being served in this case on the criminal side,” said Kelly Clarke, supervising attorney of our Fair Housing Project.

“No one should have to live in fear because of the color of their skin. The Fair Housing Act entitles all Americans to enjoy their home free of racial harassment. Our clients look forward to having their day in civil court,” said Ayanda Meachem, a supervising attorney of Legal Aid of North Carolina.

Luis Pinto, staff attorney of Legal Aid of North Carolina, also works on this case and is counsel of record; both Meachem and Pinto work in Legal Aid’s Ahoskie office. Legal Aid of North Carolina co-counsels this case with Christopher Brancart of California-based law firm Brancart & Brancart.

Individuals may obtain information about fair housing by contacting the Fair Housing Project of Legal Aid of North Carolina at (855) 797-3247.

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Legal Aid of North Carolina is a statewide, nonprofit law firm that provides free legal services in civil matters to low-income people in order to ensure equal access to justice and remove legal barriers to economic opportunity. Legal Aid’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 www.legalaidnc.org and www.fairhousingnc.org.

The work that provided the basis for this publication was supported in part by funding under a grant with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The substance and findings of the work are dedicated to the public. The author and publisher are solely responsible for the accuracy of the statements and interpretations contained in this publication. Such interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views of the federal Government.

Media Contact

Sean Driscoll, Director of Public Relations, 919-856-2132, SeanD@legalaidnc.org

Topic: Housing

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Que es el programa DEAR y como puede ayudarle a limpiar su record de trafico y en ciertos casos restaurar su privilegio de manejar? Nuestros abogados voluntarios le explican y responden preguntas en vivo por Facebook este Lunes 16 de noviembre de 2 a 3 de la tarde. Presentado por Yesenia Polanco de Polanco Law, P.C.

Topic: Housing

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RALEIGH—Legal Aid of North Carolina is suing state and county court officials to stop the issuance of eviction orders that violate both the nationwide eviction moratorium issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Governor Cooper’s executive order affirming the CDC moratorium.

We filed the suit November 9 in Wake County Superior Court.

Links

Legal Aid is asking the court to stop Archie Smith, clerk of superior court for Durham County, from ordering county sheriffs to evict tenants who are protected by the CDC moratorium and the Governor’s Executive Order. We are also asking the court to order McKinley Wooten, director of the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), and Nicole Brinkley, assistant counsel for the AOC, to direct all clerks of county courts to stop issuing writs of possession in such cases until a judge orders that a writ be issued.

The CDC moratorium temporarily prohibits the eviction of tenants who cannot pay their rent. To qualify for the moratorium’s protection, a tenant must submit to their landlord a declaration in which the tenant swears—under penalty of perjury—that they are protected by the moratorium. The agency issued the moratorium to keep people in their homes, thereby slowing the spread of COVID-19. The moratorium took effect September 4 and remains in effect through December 31.

Amidst widespread confusion about and noncompliance with the CDC moratorium, Governor Cooper issued Executive Order 171 on October 28. The executive order affirms that the moratorium applies to all residential tenants in the state and mandates that a landlord cannot request a writ of possession to evict a tenant who has submitted a declaration.

Nevertheless, the Administrative Office of the Courts directed clerks of county courts to issue writs of possession when the tenant has submitted a declaration to their landlord. This directive is contrary to both the CDC Order and the Governor’s executive order. Many clerks have followed the AOC’s directive, including Archie Smith in Durham, and have caused low-income residents who should be safe from eviction to become homeless.

Legal Aid filed the lawsuit on behalf of Durham residents facing eviction and a nonprofit advocacy group, Action NC. If the Durham residents are evicted, the tenants—a mother, her 3-year-old child and the child’s father—will become homeless, which will put them at increased risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19, all through no fault of their own. The mother and father lost their jobs during the pandemic.

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About
Legal Aid of North Carolina is a statewide, nonprofit law firm that provides free legal services in civil matters to low-income people in order to ensure equal access to justice and to remove legal barriers to economic opportunity. Learn more at legalaidnc.org.

Media contact
Sean Driscoll, director of public relations, 919-856-2132, seand@legalaidnc.org

Topic: Housing

← Back to Fair Housing

RALEIGH · Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC) announced today that it has settled housing discrimination complaints against the architects, builders, and owners of five apartment complexes located in the Triad area of North Carolina. The five complaints, which our Fair Housing Project filed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), alleged that the respondents failed to design and construct the complexes to make them accessible to persons with disabilities in compliance with the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA).

The complaints identified a number of alleged violations of FHA accessibility requirements in individual ground floor units as well as in common and public use areas. The respondents in the cases denied the allegations.

The complexes involved are: Brightwood Crossing Apartments, located in Whitsett; Chamberlain Place Apartments, located in Clemmons; Granite Ridge Apartments, located in Greensboro; Lafayette Landing Apartments, located in Jamestown; and Robinhood Court Apartments, located in Winston-Salem.

As a result of the conciliation agreement signed by the parties and approved by HUD on October 5, 2020, accessibility modifications will be made in 325 ground floor units, as well as in common areas in each of the properties. The respondents have estimated the cost of the modifications will be $1.3 million.

The agreement sets forth detailed requirements for the Respondents to undertake a wide variety of remediations, including:

  • Provide accessible routes to certain buildings with apartment units
  • Replace door hardware on unit entrance doors and on interior doors
  • Retrofit kitchens to provide adequate clear floor space at the sink, range, and refrigerator
  • Retrofit the bathroom sink cabinets to allow adequate clear floor space
  • Ensure that thermostats, light switches, and least one electrical outlet in each room meet required height accessibility requirements
  • Upon request of a tenant with a disability, install grab bars in bathrooms
  • Retrofit doors within clubhouses and similar common areas
  • Retrofit garages to comply with accessibility requirements
  • Reassign mailboxes to increase accessibility
  • Retrofit laundry rooms to provide accessible routes and door hardware
  • Reposition or make changes in the access to playgrounds, pool areas, volleyball and tennis courts, dog parks, and other recreation areas so they have accessible routes

In addition to the accessibility modifications, employees of the builders, architects and owners with direct responsibility for the design and construction of covered multi-family dwellings will undergo training on relevant sections of both the Fair Housing Act and Americans with Disabilities Act.

Jeffrey Dillman, co-director of the Fair Housing Project, noted that the accessibility provisions of the Fair Housing Act are of great importance to people with disabilities, stating, “Accessible housing is an essential means of ensuring that people with disabilities are able to fully participate in the community. Designers and builders must ensure that housing meets these modest federal accessibility requirements, in addition to state and local codes.”

The cases were filed with HUD in June 2017. The cases arose from accessibility testing performed by Legal Aid’s Fair Housing Project, which uncovered the alleged violations.

The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing because of disability. Among other things, it requires all multifamily housing constructed after March 13, 1991, to have basic exterior and interior accessibility features. The requirements apply to units, as well as for public and common use areas, such as a leasing office, clubhouse, parking, dumpsters, mailboxes, picnic areas, and other site features or amenities.

The respondents in the case are BSC Holdings, Inc., Chamberlain Place Apartments, LLC, Granite Ridge Investments, LLC, Robinhood Court Apartment Homes, LLC, Lafayette Landing Apartments and Villas, LLC, Brightwood Crossing Apartments, LLC, Salem Commercial Contracting, L.L.C., dBF Associates, Architects, Inc., Windsor Contracting, LLC, and Erskine-Smith Architecture, PLLC.

Legal Aid was represented in these cases by Jack Holtzman, an attorney with the North Carolina Justice Center, a public interest law firm located in Raleigh. 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.

Individuals may obtain information about fair housing by contacting the Fair Housing Project of Legal Aid of North Carolina at (855) 797-3247.

# # #

Legal Aid of North Carolina is a statewide, nonprofit law firm that provides free legal services in civil matters to low-income people in order to ensure equal access to justice and remove legal barriers to economic opportunity. Legal Aid’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.

The work that provided the basis for this publication was supported in part by funding under a grant with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The substance and findings of the work are dedicated to the public. The author and publisher are solely responsible for the accuracy of the statements and interpretations contained in this publication. Such interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views of the federal Government.

Media Contact

Sean Driscoll, Director of Public Relations, 919-856-2132, SeanD@legalaidnc.org

Topic: Housing

← Back to Housing

We are a partner in the House Wake! Eviction Prevention Program, which aims to prevent eviction for Wake County renters who lost income as a result of COVID-19. In this video, you can learn more about the program from Lorena McDowell, housing director for Wake County’s department of Housing Affordability and Community Revitalization. You will also learn about two other program partners, Haven House (www.havenhousenc.org) and the Telamon Corporation (www.telamon.org). Learn more about the House Wake! Eviction Prevention Program: www.wakegov.com/housing/Pages/default.aspx.

Topic: Housing

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Learn how Legal Aid can help with your disaster recovery. These sessions will focus more specifically on heir property, clarifying ownership of property, and family trees.

Heir Property and Family Trees
0:00 – About Legal Aid NC and the Disaster Relief Project
2:48 – Eligibility requirements relating to ownership
4:05 – About heir property and where it occurs during recovery
6:09 – Important definitions (will, intestate, testate, beneficiary and heir)
8:38 – What is “heir property”
12:48 – What doesn’t matter when proving ownership
17:35 – Who are the heirs?
18:47 – Constructing a family tree – examples of scenarios when someone dies without a will
26:55 – Contact the disaster relief project at 866-219-5262 or learn more at legalaidnc.org/disaster

Topic: Housing

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RALEIGH—Up to 40 million U.S. renters may face eviction by the end of the year due to the economic downturn caused by the pandemic. People of color, including Black and Hispanic tenants, represent 80% of people potentially facing eviction once federal rental protections end, according to research from the Aspen Institute and the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project.

While the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a temporary moratorium halting the eviction of tenants who cannot pay rent through the end of the year, the moratorium requires that tenants must still file a federal declaration form to be eligible for the eviction protection. Additionally, tenants are obligated to navigate varying state laws and local legal proceedings.

Legal Aid of North Carolina today announced a $300,000 grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation which will enable Legal Aid to provide free or low-cost legal assistance and representation for North Carolinians disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and at risk of eviction.

“Lack of legal representation for low-income people is a glaring equity gap,” said Rulon Washington, community outreach manager with the Wells Fargo Foundation. “We believe supporting efforts to provide low-income renters at risk with legal assistance is an important step in helping the most vulnerable people stay housed.”

Harvard researchers found an estimated 90% of landlords have legal representation, while only 10% of tenants do, putting them at a significant disadvantage. However, two-thirds of tenants with legal representation are more likely to avoid an eviction judgment and remain in their home.

“Simply having a lawyer by their side can make all the difference between a tenant staying in their home or being out on the street,” said Yolanda Taylor, managing attorney of Legal Aid’s Wilson office. “Increasing the ability of tenants to access free legal help is critical during this crisis, and support from all sectors is vital to ensuring that such help is available. Ensuring housing stability is one way that institutions can contribute to the restorative economics of those who have faced systemic barriers to economic opportunity. By working together, we can make sure that struggling families stay where they belong—at home, safe and sound. We appreciate Wells Fargo’s recognition of the importance of this work.”

As part of its $175 million response to COVID-19, the Wells Fargo Foundation has made more than 1,200 grants in support of national and local nonprofits to help keep people housed.

The Wells Fargo Foundation efforts to address the housing affordability crisis in response to COVID-19 includes expanding the capacity of housing counselors to respond to renters and homeowners, supporting nonprofits that provide affordable rental homes and services, and funding for legal assistance organizations to provide legal counsel and representation for renters at-risk of eviction. These efforts are part of the Wells Fargo Foundation’s $1 billion philanthropic commitment to address housing affordability solutions by 2025 by investing in strategies to advance housing stability, increasing supply of affordable homes; expanding homeownership opportunities for people of color; and driving transformation and innovation in local communities.

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About Legal Aid of North Carolina

Legal Aid of North Carolina is a statewide, nonprofit law firm that provides free legal services in civil matters to low-income people in order to ensure equal access to justice and to remove legal barriers to economic opportunity. Learn more at legalaidnc.org. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

About Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.97 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through 7,300 locations, more than 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 31 countries and territories to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 266,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 30 on Fortune’s 2020 rankings of America’s largest corporations. News, insights and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories.

Additional information may be found at www.wellsfargo.com | Twitter: @WellsFargo.

Media contact

Sean Driscoll, Director of Public Relations, Legal Aid of North Carolina, 919-856-2132, seand@legalaidnc.org

Topic: Housing

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RALEIGH—The Wells Fargo Foundation announced on September 24 that it had donated $5.4 million to 15 organizations around the country, including Legal Aid of North Carolina, to provide legal help to COVID-affected renters who are facing eviction.

We thank the foundation for supporting our housing work at this critical time. Legal help can make all the difference between tenants staying in their homes or being out on the street. Support from all sectors is crucial in the fight against eviction.

Read the Wells Fargo press release to learn more.