{"id":1702,"date":"2019-12-13T20:58:22","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T20:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/?p=1702"},"modified":"2023-03-27T15:52:46","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T15:52:46","slug":"that-was-my-last-resort-durhams-second-chance-for-tenants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/2019\/12\/13\/that-was-my-last-resort-durhams-second-chance-for-tenants\/","title":{"rendered":"‘That was my last resort’: Durham\u2019s second chance for tenants"},"content":{"rendered":"
Vickie Castillo has lived in Durham for nearly three decades. After failing to make one month\u2019s rent in November, she faced the possibility of being evicted for the first time in her life.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI felt scared. I was nervous. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know if I was going to have all the money in time,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n Eviction court is notoriously difficult for tenants to navigate. When they don\u2019t have lawyers, tenants almost always lose and get kicked out of their homes.<\/span><\/p>\n They get evicted even when they have reasons for not paying such as losing a job, having a sick relative, or a broken-down car. And it doesn\u2019t matter if they were purposely not paying rent to pressure the landlord to address issues with rodents, cockroaches, clogged plumbing, and more.<\/span><\/p>\n North Carolina doesn\u2019t allow retaliatory action from tenants, and the court doesn\u2019t have any leeway to give a tenant just a few more days to get the money together. If there\u2019s unpaid rent, the landlord can seek an eviction judgment.<\/span><\/p>\n Castillo\u2019s situation was unusual. She didn\u2019t retaliate against her landlord, and she didn\u2019t expect to come up short at the first of the month. She had been robbed, and had to scramble to make rent for November. She couldn\u2019t and soon received the paperwork summoning her to the courthouse.<\/span><\/p>\n In court, the magistrate doles out eviction judgments every weekday. Tenants have 10 days to appeal their case to District Court. But to stay in their property in the meantime, the tenant will have to pay a bond, which includes the overdue rent and court costs.<\/span><\/p>\n Most evictions end here, in the magistrate\u2019s hearing room. Tenants without representation rarely stand a chance of stopping the process. But Durham\u2019s new eviction diversion program is, for some tenants, a fighting chance to stay in their homes.<\/span><\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/p>\n The third floor of the courthouse is eviction headquarters. Tenants congregate around three magistrate hearing rooms. On the wall is a docket with nearly a dozen pages with green, blue, and pink highlighter marks trying to give order to the chaos. Cases are processed by the dozen\u2014sometimes there will be over 100 before lunch.<\/span><\/p>\n