Community Geography, Housing Justice and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Keywords: community geography; housing justice; pandemic; Latinx Geographies
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 52

Abstract

Latinx residents in North Carolina were disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. In February of 2021 Latinx people made up 42% of cases, and only 9% of the population. Latinx people in the state are more likely to be essential workers, and likely due to citizenship status, 37% of Latinx families in the state did not receive a stimulus check or qualify for many of the federal or state benefits— a crucial lifeline for financially struggling families. Funded by the Humanities for the Public Good, I partnered with a grassroots immigrants’ rights organization, to identify the needs of undocumented, Latinx North Carolinians during the Summer 2020 peak of the pandemic. I collaboratively designed a partnership between the organization and the Civil Legal Assistance Clinic of the UNC-CH School of Law to launch a Spanish language anti-eviction hotline for tenants to verify if their rental property qualified for an eviction moratorium under the CARES Act and receive cultural and language appropriate tenant’s rights information. Through this partnership, I conducted tenants’ rights trainings, provided court accompaniment, and assisted with landlord negotiation. The 3-month program was successful in preventing dozens of evictions. This presentation will comment on the role of public scholarship during the pandemic, the funding structure that makes graduate-student engaged scholarship possible and legible to the academy, and the deep relational work involved in practicing the type of community geography that transverses the university/community dichotomy.