Protesters rally in front of Santa Clara County Superior Court in San Jose on Jan. 27, 2021, demanding stronger state eviction protections. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

This reporting is a collaboration between El Tímpano and KQED. Originally aired on KQED’s The Bay podcast on September 29, 2021.

California’s eviction moratorium is set to expire tomorrow, September 30. But in many parts of the Bay, Latino immigrant tenants have still been getting evicted by their landlords.

That’s because protections on paper haven’t necessarily added up to protections in practice, as many renters have not been made aware of their rights and face barriers to receiving rental assistance.

KQED’s Ericka Cruz Guevarra spoke with El Tímpano’s Madeleine Bair to learn about one Oakland family that has been displaced twice this year, and to discuss the larger pattern of unofficial evictions affecting Latino immigrants.

Madeleine Bair is an award-winning journalist and media developer, and the founder of El Tímpano. Madeleine has been carrying a microphone in her backpack since she belonged to the Oakland bureau of the Peabody Award-winning youth media organization, Children’s Express. As Senior Program Manager at the international nonprofit, WITNESS, she led a pioneering initiative dedicated to advancing the use of citizen video as a tool for human rights. Madeleine has taught radio production to young adults, worked on a morning show at Chicago Public Radio, and produced multimedia for Human Rights Watch. Her stories have appeared in the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, Colorlines, and Orion, and broadcast on PRI’s The World and Independent Lens. She lives with her partner and son in Oakland, where she spends her free time making mixtapes, dancing cumbia, and exploring the region on bike.