Charlotte hotel cuts water, power. Housing advocates call it an illegal eviction.
Management at a Charlotte hotel shut off power and water Monday night to people staying there, an action housing advocates say is an illegal eviction that violates tenant rights.
In a dispute partially captured on Facebook Live video at the Days Inn on Woodlawn Road, people there said management told them earlier Monday they all had to leave and would be refunded their payments later.
At one point the lights go out and someone who identifies themselves as a resident there said water and power had been cut to the whole building, deactivating the key cards. Residents reported power and water had been restored Tuesday afternoon, more than 12 hours later.
The action will test a sometimes overlooked part of North Carolina landlord-tenant law: how it applies to people living in hotels and motels as their primary residence. Charlotte’s affordable housing crisis, which already forces many into extended stay hotels because they can’t afford other options, will certainly worsen during the economic crisis caused by COVID-19.
No one has anywhere to go, said Jayla Ware, 27, who has lived here about two months. Many don’t have transportation and there are lots of children with families. Ware said she wants “everybody to be safe, be housed and not worry about being picked on and kicked out.
“I just want the hotel to be opened up for all the homeless people right now,” Ware said.
State court officials halted new eviction hearings through June 1 as part of a broader curtailing of court activity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Attorney General Josh Stein released a letter earlier this month stating that people staying in hotels and motels as their primary residence are considered tenants and cannot be removed without a court order.
Isaac Sturgill, supervising attorney of the housing unit for Legal Aid in Charlotte, said his office has gotten a flood of calls in recent weeks, mostly from people living in hotels wondering about their rights to stay during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But most have been “piecemeal” situations where management is seeking to remove residents of individual rooms, he said.
“This is the first time where we’ve seen the hotel just completely shut down the whole hotel,” he said of the situation at Days Inn. “So this is something we haven’t seen before.”
Legal Aid is working with several Days Inn residents. Sturgill said his office sent a copy of the attorney general’s letter to the hotel.
A person who answered the phone at the hotel Monday evening said a manager was not available to speak to a reporter. No one answered Tuesday afternoon.
Tenants rights
People who rent a hotel room as their primary residence in North Carolina have the same tenancy rights as those who have a lease for an apartment or house.
Hotel management “cannot take its own actions to remove residents covered by the landlord-tenant laws, such as cutting off utilities or changing locks, without obtaining a court order,” according to the attorney general’s letter.
“If the effect of what you’re doing is to displace these families that are living there and have rights as tenants — regardless of your motivation in doing so — the law says it’s illegal to do that without a court order,” Sturgill said.
Guidance from the attorney general says courts will consider a number of factors to determine if someone is a tenant including how long the person has been there, if it is their sole residence, if they receive mail there and how often payments are made.
Jessica Moreno, an organizer with Action NC and the Tenants Organizing Resource Center said she was alerted to the situation through the organization’s tenant hot line.
The attempted ouster violates residents’ rights as tenants, Moreno said, and is especially dangerous during the current public health crisis.
“It’s important that people remain housed,” she said. “And now with COVID-19, if we continue to evict people ... it’s a health risk for everyone.”
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police have responded to complaints at the hotel in recent days, said Officer Blake Page, a spokesman for CMPD. Officers have not removed anyone from the property, he said.
Paris LaBelle, whose nonprofit Transitioning of the Carolinas Resource Center works in Charlotte’s LGBT community including people at the hotel, said community activists mobilized Monday to get basic necessities.
They fed 100 residents dinner Monday.
By Tuesday afternoon cases of water, canned food, toilet paper, toys and hot meals piled up in front of the hotel. Organizers were still on the hunt for more hand sanitizer and were communicating with legal experts for further guidance.
“It’s unreal. You do not put poor people out in these conditions,” LaBelle said. “You do not put poor people out regardless, but you definitely don’t do it in these conditions.”
This work was made possible in part by grant funding from Report for America/GroundTruth Project and the Foundation For The Carolinas.
This story was originally published April 21, 2020 at 2:04 PM.
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