The White House is holding a virtual event on Tuesday, August 2 from 12:30-2:30 pm ET on the need to build on the American Rescue Plan’s Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) Program to ensure long-term eviction reform. The summit will have presentations on the need for eviction systems reform, court-led eviction reform, innovative state and local eviction prevention programs, and congressional commitment to build on ERA’s national eviction prevention infrastructure.
The summit will include remarks from a variety of experts including Diane Yentel, NLIHC president and CEO, Matthew Desmond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Evicted, state Supreme Court Chief Justices, and leaders of model eviction prevention programs. The summit will also feature remarks from House Committee on Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters (D-CA), Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Chair Sherrod Brown (D-OH), as well as senior officials in the Biden-Harris Administration.
The American Rescue Plan’s Emergency Rental Assistance program created the country’s first national policy and national infrastructure to prevent evictions by providing assistance to millions of tenants and their landlords. Now, as available funds wind down, it is important to build on lessons learned in order to move toward the type of long-term reform that will lead to more humane and just eviction policies in the future. The White House summit will highlight examples of eviction prevention reforms needed to avoid a return to the unacceptable practices that existed before the pandemic.
The agenda for the summit is as follows:
The Urgent Need for Eviction System Reform
- Gene Sperling, White House American Rescue Plan Coordinator
- Wally Adeyemo, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of the Treasury
- Matthew Desmond, Eviction Lab, Princeton University
- Diane Yentel, National Low Income Housing Coalition
Visionary Court-Led Eviction System Reform
- Vanita Gupta, Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice
- Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack, Michigan Supreme Court
- Chief Justice C. Shannon Bacon, New Mexico Supreme Court
- Chief Judge Veronica Henry, Orleans Parish Civil District Court (Louisiana)
Innovations in State and Local Eviction Prevention
- Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot
- Philadelphia Councilmember Helen Gym
- Andrea Bell, Oregon Housing and Community Services
- Hazel Remesch, Cleveland Legal Aid
- Zach Neumann, COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project (Colorado)
Congressional Commitment to Building on ERA's Nationwide Eviction Prevention Infrastructure
- Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Chair Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
- House Committee on Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters (D-CA)
The Path Forward on Eviction Protections and Closing Remarks
- Erika Poethig, Special Assistant to the President for Housing and Urban Policy
Register for the White House Eviction Prevention Summit at: https://bit.ly/3beXbtz
For questions about the event, please contact [email protected].