Evictions leave some residents of Peoria's East Bluff seeking relief from City Council

PEORIA — About a dozen residents of the East Bluff and their supporters attended the Peoria City Council's final meeting of the year on Tuesday. They were there to ask the council for help after multiple eviction notices left many families fearing homelessness in the lead-up to Christmas.

The eviction notices were issued by Darwin Homes, an Austin, Texas-based property management firm residents say purchased multiple single-family rental properties from local owners earlier this year. Tenants spoke to the Journal Star and described feeling blindsided by 30-day eviction notices received at the end of November.

The Journal Star reached out to the rental company by email on Tuesday afternoon for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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Raychell Washington is a mother of four; the youngest of her children was born in July. She has lived in her East Bluff home for nearly a decade and now finds herself struggling to find a new home.

She asked the council to take action to delay her eviction.

"I just need a little bit more time to move," she said. "For me to have to make that move five days after Christmas is pretty much impossible."

Leslie Young, another Darwin tenant facing eviction, expressed similar concerns to the Journal Star.

"They give you 30 days, right after Christmas, so you don't have time to save for a deposit and first month's rent," she said. "There's no sympathy nowhere."

Kristen Meierkord, president of the Peoria chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and president of the East Bluff Neighborhood Association, joined her neighbors at the meeting.

"This sort of cruelty simply cannot be business as usual in our community," she told the council. "We urge this council to explore whether this complies with all local laws. We also encourage you to mark this moment if Darwin and other corporations like this approach this body looking for special treatment or favors in the future."

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Meierkord told the council that "over two dozen" East Bluff residents had been evicted by the company, and warned that some could find themselves homeless at the end of the month.

"We're working with the state ACLU to try and figure out how we can stop this from happening in the future," she told the Journal Star, "because the shelters right now are at capacity."

Meierkord's partner, community activist and current at-large City Council candidate Lawrence Maushard, also spoke at the meeting, telling the City Council that "these are our neighbors and we demand they be protected."

The eviction notices sent out by Darwin in late November were not the first it sent out this year.

Mary Robertson was evicted from the home she rented from the company in early autumn. A Section 8 tenant renting on a month-to-month lease, Robertson said she was informed via email on July 27 that her lease had not been renewed and that she had 30 days to vacate her home.

"The owner has decided to renovate the home," a Darwin employee wrote in an email, a screenshot of which was shared with the Journal Star. Robertson complied and began the process of finding a new place to live.

In January, Darwin announced it had raised $15 million in Series A funding — a company's first significant round of venture capital investment — from investors including the CEO of Doordash and former CEO of Uber.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Evicted East Bluff residents ask Peoria City Council for help