Tenants advocates call on state to support renters affected by surge of federal agents

NINA MOINI: I'm Nina Moini. You're listening to Minnesota Now. As always, we thank you for spending your time with us. This morning, tenants advocates gathered at the State Capitol to call for an eviction moratorium and rent relief funding statewide for people who are behind on rent as a result of the amped up ICE presence here.

The authority to enact an eviction moratorium for the state lies with Governor Tim Walz, who has said he can't do it without declaring a peacetime emergency, which he's been unwilling to do so far. Amanda Otero, an executive director for the nonprofit TakeAction Minnesota said, workers and families are absorbing the economic impact of the ICE surge in the state.

AMANDA OTERO: At both of my kids' schools, I have been part of teams giving rides, delivering groceries, and raising money for rent for the past two months. These teams of parents, caregivers, educators, and neighbors are supporting hundreds of families with rent and food aid every week, and we know the need is far bigger than that. Homeline reported the number one inquiry for January callers was rental assistance.

United Way's 211 hotline saw a 145% increase in calls for rental assistance, with 1,130 calls coming in on a single day in January. Families were willing to skip meals, they could borrow, rides, they could stretch resources. But losing their home was the line they could not cross because, for many, their home had become their only place of safety, their hiding place. We cannot crowdfund our way out of this.

Families have put our all into keeping our neighbors safe. We need every elected leader to show the same grit, compassion, and creativity. Housing stability is not separate from recovery, it is the foundation of it.

NINA MOINI: That was the executive director of the nonprofit TakeAction Minnesota, talking at the Capitol this morning about calls for an eviction moratorium, another group pushing for it, and even greater measures to support renters right now is the newly formed Twin Cities Tenants Union. It's a combination of already existing unions across Minneapolis and St. Paul that came together over the past two months to advocate for renters who have lost income during the ICE surge.

Lucid Thomas has been organizing with the Tenants Union, and he's here to explain more. Thanks for being on Minnesota Now this afternoon, Lucid.

LUCID THOMAS: Yes, thank you.

NINA MOINI: We just heard there from Amanda Otero talking a lot about different community, efforts that have been in place. Talk a little bit, if you would, about some of those community efforts and why you all are feeling like that is really not enough at this point.

LUCID THOMAS: Well, I mean, there have been so many great efforts. I have helped keep watch at grocery stores on caucus night, lots of people delivering groceries. But the fact is rent has been due for twice under this occupation now and people have been staying home and losing out on income that would go towards rent, which also, there's a big issue with a lot of renters being severely cost burdened.

So the income they had, they were already paying 50% of that towards their rent. So it's a lot of money that has been lost because of this occupation. And the efforts on the ground are great and they need to keep happening. But we need to see some action from our electeds.

NINA MOINI: And an eviction moratorium prohibits landlords from evicting renters from their property for a specific period of time. I know there have been city and some county level efforts that people are talking about as well for the rent relief aspect of things, but can you talk about why there is this push that you're a part of for this statewide eviction moratorium? Is this mostly a Twin Cities area problem that you're seeing? Why do you feel it needs to be statewide?

LUCID THOMAS: Well, the fact is ICE has not stayed within the Twin Cities. So Wilmer has been impacted, St. Cloud, Duluth has been impacted as well. And also, the truth of the matter is local officials have a hard time declaring an eviction moratorium without that state of emergency.

And that also would mean all these different elected or local officials would have to act individually. So the statewide moratorium just clearly protects all Minnesotans from this crisis. So, yeah, that's why we're really pushing for the statewide.

NINA MOINI: Another question folks are asking is, why push for an eviction moratorium now that DHS says that the drawdown is occurring, the number of ICE agents or federal agents is going back to pre-surge levels? Governor Tim Walz has said this week that he too, believes that, that drawdown is, in fact, happening. Why push for an eviction moratorium now?

LUCID THOMAS: Well, people are still out keeping our streets safe. So I don't know about any drawdown. And at any rate, there are still ICE agents here, which is an abomination.

But then also, the fact is, if you every ICE agent right now packed their bag and left the state, we would still be dealing with the impacts. We're going to be dealing with the impacts of this for a very, very long time. And the people who have bared those impacts the most are working class renters. So doing it now is the first step of healing, of rehabilitation.

NINA MOINI: Because January and February were already months that retroactively might be impacted or if someone were facing eviction because of the last couple of months, assuming they would not now face eviction. So I'm hearing you say some of that damage has already been done, and a lot of skepticism around what people are actually seeing on the ground.

LUCID THOMAS: I mean, so much damage has been done. I mean, I talked about the economic impacts, but there's great emotional devastation, which also, I mean, getting served an eviction is just such a horrible emotionally wrought experience. Potentially losing your home because you were afraid you'd get abducted by ICE, that's not something that should be happening.

NINA MOINI: Another thing I heard in the news conference was talking about, there's been relief packages pitched for businesses coming out of this, but Amanda Otero saying earlier that housing stability is not separate from recovery, it's the foundation of it all. Feeling like it's hard for people to go to school, people were saying, or go to work if they are insecure, their housing situation is unstable.

I want to make sure we have time to talk about the rent strike starting March 1 that your group is pushing for. Can you explain what a rent strike is? What will that look like?

LUCID THOMAS: So a rent strike is when a group of renters don't pay rent for a month or longer, depending on the demands and whether or not they get met. So yeah, that is what a rent strike is.

NINA MOINI: How many people do you have committed to doing that because it's a different unions coming together?

LUCID THOMAS: There's a few smaller groups like South Minneapolis Tenant Union, and then Inquilinos Unidos has been also organizing a lot. I'm not sure, they just launched the drive for pledges. So I don't know what our numbers are at, but we're pushing for 10,000 pledges to authorize the rent strike.

NINA MOINI: I'm curious about how you think this will impact businesses and also landlords in this moment, who also, I mean, might be struggling financially.

LUCID THOMAS: That is true. But the fact is that the families who have had to stay home, there are people who have been sheltering in place since Christmas, haven't left their home since Christmas.

There's procedures in place for if people are late on money. And I just think that we need to be really centering those who have borne the brunt of this occupation and helping those people heal.

NINA MOINI: Lucid, thank you very much for coming by and sharing about this effort. Appreciate your time.

LUCID THOMAS: Thank you so much.

NINA MOINI: That was Lucid Thomas, an organizer with the Twin Cities Tenants Union. We reached out to the Minnesota Multi-housing Association, that's a group that advocates for landlords and building managers. And we'll have updates on mprnews.org as soon as we receive their comment.