Local tenant organizing to increase housing stability is the topic of this week’s initial NLIHC End Rental Arrears to Stop Evictions (ERASE) Summer Webinar Series. The series will highlight the 2022 – 2023 ERASE cohort members’ successes in supporting local tenant organizing, securing passage of tenant protections, enforcing tenant protections, and increasing funding to sustain emergency rental assistance programs. This three-part series (June 29, July 27, and August 24, 3:00 – 4:15 pm ET) will provide NLIHC State and Tribal Partners, as well as other advocates, with information about various tenant protections pursued by cohort members, including successful advocacy strategies used to divert the threat of eviction today, as well as strategies used to ensure long-term housing stability. The registration link for the ERASE Summer Webinar Series is here.
The first webinar, “Local Tenant Organizing Efforts to Increase Housing Stability,” June 29, 2023, 3:00 – 4:15 pm ET, will highlight the 2022 – 2023 ERASE Cohort members’ efforts to pass and enforce local tenant protections that correct the power imbalance between landlords and tenants. Specifically, attendees will hear from tenant-led organizations and community partners about efforts to educate, train, and organize their members to advocate for solutions to issues impacting their living conditions and housing stability. Presenters will discuss organizing methods to win policies and procedures to lower rent caps, create landlord registries, enforce tenant protections, and address habitability concerns.
Confirmed speakers include:
- Sarah White, staff attorney, Connecticut Fair Housing Center
- Teresa Quintana, housing equity organizer – Hartford, Make the Road Connecticut
- Itzel Hernandez Spehar, director of policy and advocacy, Bienestar
- Mihaela Gough, managing attorney, Centro Legal de la Raza
- Betty Gabaldon, tenant organizer, Contra Costa County, The East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE)
Register here.
The 2022 – 2023 ERASE Cohort is a select group of 34 state and local nonprofit organizations that are conducting on-the-ground partnership development, capacity building, outreach and education, and policy reform/systems change work to promote housing stability, advance equity, and prevent evictions for renter households all over the nation.
The ERASE Project was created in January 2021 in an effort to ensure that the historic $46.6 billion in emergency rental assistance (ERA) enacted by Congress during the COVID-19 pandemic reached the lowest-income and most marginalized renters for whom it was intended. Today, the ERASE Project seeks to end housing instability and homelessness by advocating for passage of more permanent tenant protections, including protections related to source-of-income discrimination, the civil right to counsel, “just cause” eviction, eviction record sealing and expungement, and rent stabilization/anti-rent gouging. Learn more about the ERASE Project at: https://nlihc.org/erase-project
Future webinars are:
“State Legislative Efforts to Advance Tenant Protections”
July 27, 2023, 3:00 – 4:15 pm ET
Attendees will learn about 2022 – 2023 ERASE cohort members’ successful efforts to pass tenant protections at the state-level. Presenters will discuss the types of tenant protections pursued, strategies used to win passage of protections, challenges faced in doing so, and how cohort members overcame them.
Register here.
“Efforts to Sustain Emergency Rental Assistance”
August 24, 2023, 3:00 – 4:15 pm ET
Attendees will learn about 2022 – 2023 ERASE cohort members’ efforts to sustain emergency rental assistance programs in their localities. Attendees will learn how cohort members are assessing their communities’ need for rental assistance, what aspects of emergency rental assistance are continuing in the post pandemic era, what sources of funding streams exist to continue program operations, and legislative strategies for securing revenue to sustain emergency rental assistance programs.
Register here.