She’s all about housing equality

“As a student here, I've moved about 4 times in 6 years because housing prices are extremely high and affordable options are scarce,” says Chaniqua Simpson. “A lot needs to be done. I don't have all the answers, but I know that we need affordable housing that protects the city's most vulnerable.”

Simpson, a doctoral student in sociology, and one of twelve Electoral Justice League Fellows nationwide as part of the Movement for Black Lives, visits the Libraries to speak about her journey to NC State, her work with the Electoral Justice League around access to affordable housing, and her plans for the future. Her talk takes place on Wednesday, Nov. 14 from 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. in the D. H. Hill Jr. Library Fishbowl Forum and is free and open to the public.

“We need community benefits agreements with new companies and businesses that come to Raleigh to ensure that people are not pushed out of their neighborhoods,” she says. “I also believe we need protections for renters like eviction diversion programs to help mediate landlord tenant relations.”

Simpson visits as part of the Libraries’ Stellar Student series, through which some of the best thinking, writing, and multimedia work being done by undergraduate and graduate students across the campus is on display.

As an Electoral Justice League Fellow, Simpson will develop a campaign for housing justice in downtown Raleigh.

“As a part of project where we interviewed low-income mothers in the area, we found that they are facing real challenges to finding secure housing for their families and they face eviction at high rates,” she says. “A lot of this fellowship has been power mapping, outreach, and relationship building. I plan to continue that line of work and to work through the fellowship to create some kind of knowledge or information base on how people experience housing and evictions in Raleigh, which is within the top 100 evicting cities.”

Contact
Marian Fragola
919-513-3481
marian_fragola@ncsu.edu