With Coronavirus cases and deaths on the rise, and a third of Americans failing to meet their full July housing payments, it is clear that the COVID crisis is still raging. Now is the time to extend, strengthen, and enforce assistance to working people in the interest of public health. Despite this, Governor Pritzker has announced that the Illinois eviction moratorium will expire August 22nd, - opening the floodgates for an unprecedented wave of evictions.

The Governor and state legislature, in failing to pass the COVID-19 Renter and Homeowner Protection Act, have ignored repeated, widespread demands for lasting housing protections made by the 17,500 Illinoisians and community organizations who signed a Rent Freeze petition in March, and echoed by the Chicago Latino City Council Caucus

There is a deeply racist character to this inaction: Black and Latino renters are unable to pay rent at higher rates and evicted at higher rates. Politicians who say “Black Lives Matter,” but won't protect the homes that those lives take place in, are telling us their words are hollow.

The soon-expiring moratorium and the Governor’s newly announced rental relief grants are insufficient to avert the crisis. Even when a tenant is able to successfully apply for rent relief , the grants will be paid directly to the landlord - creating opportunities for fraud and abuse, and depriving working tenants of desperately needed financial flexibility when many are weighing the costs of food, childcare, and rent.

Over 1,300 eviction cases have been filed in Cook County Court alone since the Governor’s initial shelter-in-place order was enacted in late March. Many of these were likely filed illegally, in violation of IL Executive Order 30, which bans the commencement of most evictions. Many tenants are unaware of the protections provided to them by the moratorium, which has allowed landlords to abuse their power by threatening and commencing illegal evictions. To lift the moratorium now would abandon Illinois’ tenants when help is needed most, threatening families with homelessness or forcing them to work in unsafe conditions during a global pandemic.

Now is the time to repair the harm done by previous violations of the moratorium and extend and strengthen eviction protections,- not to eliminate them in favor of insufficient, bureaucratic grant programs. We demand that Governor Pritzker stop allowing tenants to spend each day wondering if the moratorium will be extended, while accruing thousands in ​rent debt​, and take the following steps instead:

1. Extend the moratorium until three months after Phase 5 is reached. Each month, the Governor has "considered" tenants' fate just weeks before the moratorium expires. Regardless of Pritzker's powers, he can make his plans for the moratorium clear, instead of leaving struggling renters wondering at the end of every month if they'll be kicked to the streets.

2. Stop court filings and enforce the moratorium. Require landlords who file evictions to affirmatively swear that they are in compliance with IL Executive Order 30, which bans the commencement of most evictions, including those for unpaid rent. Landlords continue to file evictions that should be prohibited under this order, intimidating tenants into self-evicting and harming their records. Widely distribute informational material in accessible language to tenants across the state so they can defend their rights, and take proactive measures to prevent illegal lockouts, intimidation, and retaliation by landlords. Repair harm done by landlords who have violated the moratorium, by immediately dismissing and vacating all evictions filed since the initial shelter-in-place order.

3. No Rent Debt. US renters currently owe over $21.5 Billion in rent debt to their landlords. This is unacceptable. Prevent and erase all rent debt accrued due to COVID-19, provide direct financial assistance to tenants (not to landlords).

4. Cancel Rent for as long as the threat to public health remains. Institute substantive mortgage and utility relief to take financial pressure off working class homeowners,