Arkansas Access to Justice

There's No Place Like Home: Legal Aid Programs Respond to the COVID-19 Crisis

By Kendall Lewellen

The last year has created a new public awareness of the way that housing insecurity affects people’s lives. “Eviction affects everything in a person’s life,” according to Wake Forrest Law School Professor Emily Benfer. “It jeopardizes a family’s future housing opportunities and security. It limits access to opportunity, especially as people are attempting to put their lives back together. It is both a barrier to employment and a cause of unemployment.”1 Eviction disproportionately affects families with minor children.2 Mothers report more poverty, depression, and poor health outcomes for themselves and their children after eviction.3 Eviction also increases the spread of COVID-19 and related deaths among the general public.4

The government has taken huge steps to promote stable housing during COVID-19. There is a halt on foreclosures until June 30, 2021, for the 70% of single-family homes with federally-backed mortgages.5 The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) has ordered a temporary halt in residential evictions for nonpayment of rent until June 30, 2021.6 The federal government has given generous funding for tenants and homeowners struggling with payments, although much of those funds have not yet reached the people who need them. Arkansas has created the Arkansas Rent Relief Program7 and Arkansas Fresh Start to help landlords and tenants access that aid.8 There are many new laws and resources to promote stable housing.

However, many families lose their homes despite these protections. We see evictions for nonpayment of rent on a daily basis although there is an eviction moratorium in place. Some of these happen in courts while some happen through extrajudicial methods such as illegal lock outs and utility shut-offs. Our program has prevented evictions for many of those families. We also help tenants negotiate settlements when appropriate by getting them time to find other housing, neutral references, and other terms to soften the impact of eviction on their lives. Many tenants have defenses such as the CDC eviction moratorium, procedural defects, and cases filed through the unauthorized practice of law. However, even tenants with defenses will probably lose their homes if they do not have access to counsel.

Legal aid programs have stepped up to meet this challenge. The Center for Arkansas Legal Services has almost doubled its housing cases in the past year. We have made it a priority to inform the public of changes in the law through our website (www.arkansaslegal.org) and social media presence. In 2020, the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission hosted a continuing legal education (CLE) course on eviction law during COVID-19 taught by staff from the state’s two legal aid programs. We were proud to see that over 400 people attended the CLE, many of whom now handle pro bono cases through our program.

We will continue this work once COVID19 is over. We are especially excited to participate in a Housing Connective Care & Action Network of multidisciplinary partners to work together on long-term solutions to housing stability for Arkansas families over the next two years.

If you would like to volunteer to help an Arkansas family keep their home, please contact the Center for Arkansas Legal Services at probono@arkansaslegalservices. org. Our staff can also make presentations in the community about housing and other civil legal issues. For more information, please visit www.arkansaslegal.org.

Endnotes:

1. Talk Justice, an LSC Podcast, Episode 4: Eviction and the Pandemic, Legal Services Corporation (Oct. 13, 2021), available at: https://www.lsc.gov/media-center/ blog/2020/10/13/talk-justice-lsc-podcastepisode-4-eviction-and-pandemic [Accessed 28 April 2021]. 2. Matthew Desmond, Weihu An, Richelle Winkler, and Thomas Ferriss, Evicting Children, 92 Social Forces 303, 319 (Sept. 2013). 3. Matthew Desmond and Rachel Tolbert Kimbro, Eviction’s Fallout: Housing, Hardship, and Health, 94 Social Forces (2015). 4. Kathryn M. Leifheit, Sabriya L. Linton, Julia Raifman, Gabriel Schwartz, Emily Benfer, Frederick J. Zimmerman and Craig Pollack, Expiring Eviction Moratoriums and COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality (Nov. 30, 2020), available at https://ssrn.com/ abstract=3739576 (pending peer review). 5. Foreclosure Protection and Mortgage Payment Relief for Homeowners, National Housing Law Project (2021), available at <https://www.nhlp.org/wp-content/ uploads/2020.04.10-NHLP-HomeownerRelief-Info-Sheet-Update2.pdf> [Accessed 28 April 2021]. 6. Temporary Halt in Residential Evictions to Prevent the Further Spread of COVID19, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2021), available at <https:// www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/ pdf/CDC-Eviction-Moratorium-03292021. pdf> [Accessed 28 April 2021]. 7. Rent Relief, Arkansas Department of Human Services (2021), available at <https:// humanservices.arkansas.gov/covid-19/dhsresponse-to-covid-19/updates-for-clients/rentalassistance/> (Accessed 19 May 2021). 8. Arkansas Fresh Start, Arkansas Community Action Agencies of Arkansas (2021), available at: <https://arfreshstart.com> [Accessed 28 April 2021]. ■

Kendall Lewellen is the Housing Practice Group Leader for the Center for Arkansas Legal Services