Plaintiffs will appeal, saying the decision gives them a road map to the  First Circuit  PRESS RELEASE – OCTOBER 13, 2020 New York, NY — Judge William Smith of the U.S. District Court for  Rhode Island today issued his long-awaited decision in Cook v.  Raimondo. The case was filed in November 2018 by a group…

The Rhode Island Center for Justice supports the 2020 Justice Budget platform, which calls for equitable budgeting, fair taxes, and improved social safety nets in a balanced economy. We call on legislators and state leaders to pass the provisions in the Justice Budget and make Rhode Island a state of shared prosperity for all. Economic…

The Providence Journal recently published a salacious story of a tenant-landlord dispute, where the landlord of a luxury apartment was unable to remove a tenant when her lease expired. The piece depicted the tenant as a charlatan lawyer who decided to overstay her lease. However, this article does not reflect the reality of most tenant-landlord…

All National Grid residential customers are protected from utility shutoff due to the pandemic, but this protection will expire at the end of September unless you are enrolled in low-income discount rates. If you are enrolled in discount rates, you are protected from shutoff until April 2021. You may be newly eligible for this rate…

Está en riesgo de ser desalojado por falta de pagar la renta? Vea el Formulario de Notificación y Declaración de Moratoria de Desalojo y solicite ayuda para pagar la renta aquí. On September 5, 2020 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published an order to temporarily halt certain residential evictions to prevent the…

Anuncio traducido abajo. English / Inglés The Latino Policy Institute, AMOR (Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance), Fuerza Laboral, and the Economic Progress Institute have released resource guides in Spanish and English on rights of workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, including worker safety, sick leave, and unemployment. These documents, embedded below, include: https://tinyurl.com/BackToWorkRI-ENG: An English two-page…

At their July 13th meeting, the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted to extend the state’s moratorium on utility shutoffs by National Grid through November 1st, 2020 for low-income utility customers and through September 30th, 2020 for all other residential utility customers. Citing a number of the arguments articulated in the Public Comment submitted…

Since the year 2000, nearly 5,000 identified Black men, women and children have been killed in fatal encounters with police across the United States.  A Washington Post investigation found that the FBI undercounts fatal police shootings by more than half because reporting by police departments is voluntary.  Until recently there was no comprehensive national database…

New District Court Eviction Protocol On March 22, 2020 the Rhode Island District Court issued Administrative Order 2020-03 regarding District Court Eviction Protocol. The order sets out a phased re-opening of the District Court, with a plan to re-schedule hearings for cases that have already been filed, and new guidelines for cases filed on or after June…

Per Rhode Island Supreme Court Executive Order 2020-04, all non-emergency matters—including judicial eviction proceedings—are on hold until at least April 17, 2020. However, courts are not staying removal of tenants for whom a judge has already issued a writ of execution.

This means that new evictions are not being processed, and in-process evictions are on hold, but where a court has already ordered that an eviction can proceed, sheriffs are allowed to remove tenants.

If you are a tenant facing eviction and you are in private housing (that is, not Section 8 or public housing), you can call the Center for Justice at 401-491-1101. If you are in Section 8 or public housing, please call Rhode Island Legal Services at 401-274-2652 (Providence office) or 401-846-2264 (Newport office).