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In the dusty front yard of her home of three years, Rosemarie Navarro put her hands over her sightless eyes, shouts mounting around her. The constable had finally arrived to enforce an eviction order she believed to be illegal.
It was just after 4 p.m. on a steamy Friday in late August. Rosemarie and her long-time partner Gabriel Chavez had held out hope they could fight the eviction, after getting notice their landlord was taking them to court. Then, after the judge in Pima County Consolidated Justice Court quickly ruled in their landlord’s favor, they’d started packing.
Rosemarie, 41, and Gabriel, 46, knew an eviction likely meant losing their Section 8 rent assistance, which they’d secured after three years on the waiting list. They feared an eviction on their record would make it harder for them to find a decent landlord willing to rent to them.
But mostly, they were outraged that they were being evicted for nonpayment of rent, when Section 8 had already paid the bulk of their $587 August rent and said they’d tried repeatedly to pay the remaining $152. The landlord wouldn’t take it, they said.
