STOP is a community organization that builds the power of residents on the Southside of Chicago to impact the forces and decisions that affect our lives. We fight for human rights to racial and economic justice through organizing, popular education, and leadership development amongst people most directly affected by issues like gentrification, displacement, incarceration and criminalization of youth of color and health cuts.

For the past five years, STOP has fought back against the war on the poor through tenant, youth and healthcare organizing, action research and education, alliance building, and collaborating with tenant associations, youth and community organizations, and labor unions from around the city and nation. Our accomplishments include stopping the displacement of over 600 low income and working class black residents, bringing immediate redress to human rights violations occuring in the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center and stopping the closure of four southside mental health clinics.

It’s not just that eviction happens a lot in poor neighborhoods, but Matt’s was also stunned by who eviction was happening to.

“Eviction is disproportionately experienced by women and black women. It’s the feminine equivalent of incarceration,” he said. “There’s a lot of young black men being locked up and young black women being locked out.”

And eviction has consequences, more consequences than just getting put out on the street. One eviction on your record makes it harder to find your next apartment. Your security deposit might be higher. Your rent might be greater. For families who are already struggling that much, that kind of pressure leads to more trouble, more evictions. Many of the families Matt talked to were paying 80 to 90 percent of their income in rent per month.