SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the this-is-the-most-2020-thing-of-2020-yet dept.
Gig Economy Company Launches Uber, But for Evicting People:
"SINCE COVID-19 MANY AMERICANS FELL BEHIND IN ALL ASPECTS," reads the website copy. The button below this statement is not for a GoFundMe, or a petition for calling for rent relief. Instead, it is the following call to action, from a company called Civvl: "Be hired as eviction crew."
During a time of great economic and general hardship, Civvl aims to be, essentially, Uber, but for evicting people. Seizing on a pandemic-driven nosedive in employment and huge uptick in number-of-people-who-can't-pay-their-rent, Civvl aims to make it easy for landlords to hire process servers and eviction agents as gig workers.
Helena Duncan, a Chicago-based paralegal who also participates in housing activism, saw a Craigslist post from Civvl while searching for jobs. The ad alarmed her.
"It's fucked up that there will be struggling working-class people who will be drawn to gigs like furniture-hauling or process-serving for a company like Civvl, evicting fellow working-class people from their homes so they themselves can make rent," she told Motherboard.
[...] At the time of writing, Civvl and OnQall did not return requests for comment, but did appear to block the author's IP address from visiting OnQall.com.
There is a federal ban on evictions, declared by the CDC, but landlords are still attempting to press on. There is a penalty for violating the ban, which can include a combination of fines and jail time. Civvl did not respond to a question about how the company ensures evictions are legal, though based on the Terms of Service, it appears to pass all risk onto the companies using its platform, stating that it simply "provides lead generation to independent contractors," and does not actually carry out the work itself.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday September 30 2020, @08:23PM
I would turn off the water by walking up to the main with a big wrench and turning it. The same thing I do if a pipe bursts and starts flooding my house. I would turn the electric off by walking up to the fuse box and flipping the 2 50 amp line fuses, then locking the fuse box. I would change the locks by pulling out the lock cylinder and putting in a new one, when the renters aren't home.
If someone does things that break the lease, they are not protected by the no eviction order. The eviction order protects people not paying - renters. Once the lease is broken by the resident, they are no longer a renter, and not under the lease. Now, they are free to take it to court or another city department and argue their case, while looking for a new apartment and moving their shit off the lawn in the rain to self-storage.
No eviction doesn't mean you can do anything you want. I may indeed lose in court - months later. After they spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours defending their scam and their breaking of the lease. Let me put it into perspective for you: does no evictions mean they're free to cook meth and start bonfires in the living room of their rental property?