Five candidates running for seats in the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate fielded questions on the intersection of poverty, housing affordability and eviction rates in Richmond at a forum Thursday evening. (Photo by Rodrigo Arriaza)
In a conversation that covered housing affordability, health care, equal pay and historic racism and discrimination practices, five candidates vying for seats in the state Senate and House of Delegates considered how best to mitigate Richmond’s staggering eviction rates at a candidate forum Thursday evening.
The event, hosted by the Campaign to Reduce Evictions, the local chapter of the League of Women Voters and the Richmond Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, delved into contributing factors and how the General Assembly can address the issue.
Although candidates from all area House and Senate districts were invited to the forum, only five attended, four of whom are Democrats: 71st District Del. Jeff Bourne, D-Richmond, and Libertarian challenger Pete Wells; 68th District Del. Dawn Adams, D-Richmond; 69th District Del. Betsy Carr, D-Richmond; and Ghazala Hashmi, a Democrat challenging 10th District Sen. Glen Sturtevant, R-Midlothian.
The candidates agreed that the issue of housing instability, which disproportionately affects the city's south, east and northeastern neighborhoods, according to the RVA Eviction Lab, can be traced back to systemic and historic racism and housing discrimination practices in Richmond.
"When you look at where the evictions are happening, and you overlay that with where the schools are not performing and you look at where the most abject poverty is, and then you look back 50, 60, 70 years, those were intentional decisions from policymakers that don’t think like us," Bourne said.
Possible solutions brought up by panelists included expunging dismissed eviction cases from someone's record, increasing funding to the state's affordable housing trust fund and raising the minimum wage in Virginia. Wells clashed with the other panelists on the last suggestion, saying that rising wages would lead landlords to hike rents, but he agreed that understanding and addressing the issue of evictions in Richmond and across the state will take an intersectional approach.
Adams, a nurse practitioner and former director of the state's Office of Integrated Health, emphasized that housing instability can lead to declines in physical and mental health, and noted that the issue disproportionately affects families with children.
"It is a problem that displaces a far greater number of children than most people know, and that in and of itself is destabilizing to their education, to their health and welfare, to their communities, so we as legislators need to be looking at it through these multi-factorial lenses," said Adams, who faces a challenge in her re-election bid from Republican candidate Garrison Coward, chief operating officer of the data analytics firm BizCents.
Eviction rates became a hot topic after the release of a Princeton University ranking last year which found that Richmond had the second-highest eviction rate of all large cities in the U.S., at 11% annually from 2000 to 2016. Furthermore, the study found that Virginia is home to half of the top 10 cities in the country with the highest rates of home evictions. Princeton's Eviction Lab was founded by sociologist Matthew Desmond, author of the Pulitzer-winning book "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City." Desmond will be in town on Wednesday, Oct. 16, for a 6 p.m. talk on the topic at Virginia Commonwealth University's Siegel Center.
Mayor Levar Stoney announced a city Eviction Diversion Program in January, which will be implemented by Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME) in partnership with the city, Central Virginia Legal Aid Society and the city court system. Last month, City Council awarded HOME $485,140 to operate the program. Gov. Ralph Northam also signed legislation creating a state Eviction Diversion Program to be piloted in Danville, Hampton, Petersburg and Richmond.
Carr, however, said these programs should be just one part of a larger toolbox to address access to housing and prevent evictions.
"This program only kicks in once someone is in court facing an eviction. At that point, the individual or family has already experienced trauma," she said. "I want to see the state fund and support local programs that are designed to prevent the destabilizing trauma of evictions."
