Thread: A quick recap of how this week's public housing fight intersects with the 5th district race.
Evictions in the "big six" housing courts have been our focus so far, but there is public housing and HUD assisted housing throughout the city, including in the 5th:
Evictions in the "big six" housing courts have been our focus so far, but there is public housing and HUD assisted housing throughout the city, including in the 5th:
Today, 5th district candidates began to weigh in on evidence of mass evictions in Creighton Court, reported below. Creighton is not the only site of mass evictions. Whitcomb Court has 35 evictions on the docket for tomorrow.
This afternoon @DaSilvaRVA took a strong stance against eviction, stating the role redevelopment has taken in both driving families from their homes and housing authority's warehousing of empty units despite a housing waitlist.
Da Silva's campaign also committed funds toward closing the balances of the 9 families whose outstanding rent is less than $100 dollars. @RVANewSouth has also set up an account in support of that effort:
In a statement released late this afternoon @Stephanie4RVA opposed mass evictions in public housing, calling for the establishment of a standing eviction relief fund and full realization of tenant rights to governance of public housing:
The statement released by @Stephanie4RVA also called for full public transparency in evictions rates, units warehoused, and families waitlisted. We strongly endorse the establishment of a dashboard of these metrics, which should be maintained monthly:
Following Lynch's announcement, @DaSilvaRVA responded with a followup request to his fellow candidates to return all campaign funds received that present a conflict with good faith governance on housing issues in the 5th and citywide.
In this demand Da Silva notes @ThadWilliamson has taken funds from T.K. Somanath, former CEO of RRHA.
We share Mr. Da Silva's concern about this donation. Mr Somanath was removed as CEO of the city housing authority through the tireless advocacy of residents and organizers following the heat crisis in RRHA in 2017-18.
richmond.com/news/local/ric…
richmond.com/news/local/ric…
Somanath showed particular lack of empathy for residents during a 2017 press conference on violence in public housing during which he threatened evictions based on suspicion of wrongdoing. That press conference was summarized below by @ternary_logic:
ternary-logic.com/2017/09/13/cit…
ternary-logic.com/2017/09/13/cit…
When reminded that those families might have children who would also be evicted, Somanath replied that those children would be handled by “the foster care system and the legal system." You can view that press conference here: facebook.com/CBS6News/video…
Mr. Williamson also has a campaign donation from Robley Jones, a member of RRHA's current board.
At the time we're posting this we have not seen statements on the eviction crisis from Mr. Williamson, or other candidates in 5th district race. Their full statements on public housing policy can be found at our 5th district candidate report card: bit.ly/2019ReportCard…
