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See Inside Duke avoids second half letdown Page 4
T H E I N D E P E N D E N T D A I LY AT D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2018 DUKECHRONICLE.COM
MEN’S BASKETBALL
Grayson Allen catches fire to lead No. 12 Duke to win
ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEENTH YEAR, ISSUE 57
DUKE PROGRAM AIMS TO COUNTER DURHAM’S HIGH EVICTION RATE
By Sameer Pandhare Associate Sports Editor
With freshman Marvin Bagley III missing his second consecutive game with a knee sprain, the Blue Devils knew they would need to play through their guards to beat a pesky Virginia Tech team. Gary Trent Jr. and Grayson Allen did just that, and 12thranked Duke used its hot shooting from beyond the arc to push past the Hokies 74-52 Wednesday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Trent and Allen combined for 44 points and hit 12 triples to pace the Blue Devil offense. After a back-and-forth first half with both teams struggling to build a lead, Duke gained an edge near the end of the first half before using a 9-0 spurt midway through the second half to pull away. For the second consecutive game, Allen was in attack mode, and the senior made his presence felt across with the court, finishing with 25 points and six assists to match his highest-scoring outing since a 37-point explosion against Michigan State in November. “That’s the first full 40 I think we’ve played,” Allen said. “We’ve had a lot of games, it’s been 32, 36, it’s been really close, but we’ve let another team go on a run and win one of those segments. But tonight in the second half, we went on our big run and we made it a point to not let up and not let them crawl back.” The Jacksonville, Fla., native punctuated his stellar game with one of his best sequences of the season. After hitting his sixth triple of the game on a pass from Trent, Allen found freshman Wendell Carter Jr. skying for an alley-oop. On the very next possession, Carter returned the favor, finding Allen for yet another triple to ignite the home crowd and push Duke’s lead to 20 midway through the second half. Trent matched the Blue Devil captain stride for stride See M. BASKETBALL on Page 5
Evan Mapes | Contributing Photographer Grayson Allen scored 25 points and knocked down seven 3-pointers to get out of his slump.
Juan Bermudez | Sports Photography Editor From July 2015 to June 2016, almost 890 eviction cases were filed each month on average in Durham.
By Claire Ballentine Towerview Editor
Many Duke students love the new restaurants and shiny apartment complexes that have recently sprung up in Durham. The downside to this? Gentrification and rising rents that lead to longtime Durham residents to be evicted from their homes. Durham has the highest eviction filing rate among North Carolina’s ten largest counties, with one eviction case filed per 29 residents in the last fiscal year. From July 2015 to June 2016, there were an average 887 eviction cases filed each month on average. But the Eviction Diversion Program at Duke is seeking to help residents avoid evictions and their consequences. It was launched in August by Duke’s Civil Justice Clinic along with Legal Aid of North Carolina and the Durham County Department of Social Services. “Both Legal Aid and our clinic found ourselves doing more and more eviction cases,” said Charles Holton, director of the Civil Justice Clinic and Law ‘73. “We began to look more closely at the issues and found that Durham leads the state in rate of evictions per population size.” He explained that evictions are particularly troublesome because they go on your credit record, which future landlords will look at. They can also lead to the breakdown of family structures and social relationships or interfere with school and health care access. In addition, evictions often lead to homelessness or a gradual decline in the quality of housing you can get. Most landlords also hate evictions because this means they miss several months of rent coming in, Holton added. The Eviction Diversion Program was designed in part by Ben Wasserman, Law ‘17, who worked in the Civil Justice Clinic. Holton asked him to help research similar programs in other cities and adapt them to Durham. “I jumped on the opportunity because I thought it was a
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really cool way to make a tangible impact on Durham from a policy perspective,” Wasserman said. The program helps connect tenants with legal and financial aid to avoid displacement from evictions, he explained. When an eviction notice is served, a flyer about the program is also included and residents can call Social Services to evaluate the status of their lease.
If we hope to make a dent in the eviction process, [we] need numbers. charles holton
DIRECTOR OF THE CIVIL JUSTICE CLINIC
“We make an inquiry about that to see what else is going on,” Holton said. “Sometimes landlords will bring evictions to retaliate against complaints [from tenants].” Within 48 hours, Social Services determines if they can help with emergency rental assistance funding for special circumstances like tenants who are veterans, handicapped or have children. If tenants are willing to participate in the Eviction Diversion Program, their papers are sent over to Legal Aid where the situation will be assessed from a legal status. There are about ten to twelve law students involved in the program who work on about 50 cases a month, Holton explained. They engage in negotiations with the landlord or landlords’ attorneys, which are often successful. They can often avoid evictions going through by negotiating an exit from the lease. “If lease is salvageable, we work out those terms,” Holton said. “Then hopefully [the] case gets dismissed. There are various outcomes that are unique to each situation, but we can often negotiate out. Sometimes we have to negotiate out in court.” He noted that this work can be difficult because of the quick timeline for eviction cases. The clinic often doesn’t receive the See EVICTION on Page 8
Professor makes controversial remarks about libertarianism progress
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History professor Nancy MacLean claimed that libertarianism “seemed to be on the autism spectrum.”
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