Housing Is A Civil and Human Right By H. Benjamin Ed. D, President, Cobb County Chapter of the SCLC By Mr. Richard Pelligrino, Director of Field Operations, Cobb County Chapter of the SCLC
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization [WHO] declared COVID-19 a
global pandemic. Stated differently, respected scientists concluded that the virus has caused the death of over 4,571,410 people world-wide, while 647,000 occurred in the USA and in the state of Georgia more than 22,000 lives were lost to this phenomenon that experts inform usonlyhappens once every one thousand [1000] years. Mental and emotional illness and death were not the only consequences resulting from this rare and deadly horror. The pandemic has placed our fragile social system network in a deadly chokehold that if left unattended will wipe out many of the accomplishments that still stand as bed rock of the civil rights movement that fought for jobs, housing, education and hundreds of other pieces of legislation and policies supporting social justice for all. The pandemic has caused the separation of employees from their employers; the separation of parents and students from their teachers and their schools; and the separation of tenants from their landlords. Regrettably, evictions have skyrocketed leading many observers to predict the coming of an epidemic owing to the large number of individuals and families who will be at best forced to be sheltered with family members or friends, and others who will use their automobiles, tents, blankets, cardboard boxes and/or caverns formed by traffic overpasses for shelter. The unsheltered who secure vouchers from local housing authorities are found unacceptable by an increasing number of land lords who also have been adversely impacted by the pandemic. Although funds are available to pay delinquent rents, the system is not efficiently operated and landlords who need the income they receive from their rental properties are caught in a bind and, like tenants, many of them suffer.
SCLC National Magazine/ Fall 2021 Issue
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