Residents Of Los Angeles County's Poorest Areas To Get Help In Keeping Their Homes - LATimes

[WillyT]

Residents of Los Angeles County's poorest areas to get help in keeping their homes.
At Los Angeles County's downtown civil courthouse, a coalition of legal aid groups will provide representation to about 15,000 people facing eviction over three years.
By Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times
May 2, 2011

<snip>

Thousands of residents in Los Angeles' poorest neighborhoods will get new legal help in fighting high-stakes eviction cases involving slumlords and foreclosures under a pilot project approved by the state's judicial leaders Friday.

The new Eviction Legal Assistance Center at Los Angeles County Superior Court's downtown civil courthouse will provide legal representation to about 15,000 people facing eviction over three years, according to legal aid groups, which will be jointly running the center.

In the majority of the county's 70,000 annual eviction cases, poor and unrepresented tenants are pitted against landlords who have private attorneys, and they face uphill battles in navigating housing laws, protecting their rights and reaching reasonable settlements, the groups say.

In the caseload passing through Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown L.A., attorneys said, they found that three South L.A. ZIP Codes — 90003, 90011 and 90044 — had more evictions than elsewhere in the county.

By concentrating their efforts on those areas, the legal aid organizations also want to show that providing assistance will lead to broader economic effects on the community by keeping people off the streets and in their jobs and keeping children in their homes, said Public Counsel President Hernán Vera.

<snip>

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-eviction-20110502,0,4316040.story

:kick:

[dkf]

1. Why don't they just pay the rent for these people?

Instead they take it out on investors who may themselves go belly up? Then more people get destroyed.

[bobbolink]

2. Because bloodsuckers need to be fought!

[WillyT]

3. + 1,000,000,000... What You Said !!!

Exactly.

[bobbolink]

4. Thanks, Willy T!! This IS a class war, and it needs to be joined!

To The Fucking Barricades!

[LiberalAndProud]

5. Explained in the article, I think.

We see this as the first baby steps toward a national movement recognizing there's a larger right to legal representation at stake," Vera said. "Not only is it a moral right, it economically makes sense."

[bobbolink]

6. YES!!! The legal weakness of poor people is a killer,, and MUST be confronted!

Praises to the advocates behind this! :loveya:

[LiberalAndProud]

7. bobbolink, on this we agree 100%

Lack of legal representation serves to keep poor people poor. Some days I suspect that it is so by design.

[bobbolink]

8. It *IS* so by design. Raygun purposely killed Legal Aid and rendered it almost toothless.

Sadly, most "progressives" don't grasp that. :(

That is basically how I became homeless. In a HUD apartment, with an assistant manager who was a sociopath. He made everyone's life miserable. We tenants tried and tried to get justice, but there was NO recourse...anywhere. People just don't understand that.

One day he was abusing an elderly woman, and just about had her to the pavement. I intervened, and of course, after that he made life impossible for me, and there was no way to tolerate it. I had to leave, with no place to go. (The woman's family got her out of there immediately.)

Everyone who could, left, including staff, and there was NOTHING that could be done about this asshole!

Yes, Legal Rescourse is an absolute necessity!

[LiberalAndProud]

9. I guess he did. I googled.

1981 ... back in the days when I was only periferally aware, much to my shame. The dark cloud that began under Reagan continues to gather. I think I won't see the end of it in my lifetime.

[bobbolink]

10. We won't see the end of it until and unless we take it seriously and FIGHT BACK.

You know.. like those kids in Arizona in that video.

But, since this is about poverty and not the middleclass, it doesn't get much traction.

[LiberalAndProud]

11. I am weary.

It seems like nothing gets traction any more. Not antipoverty initiatives, not peace initiatives, not jobs initiatives.

War initiatives seem to be taking the wind out of all other sails.

[bobbolink]

12. So am I. So are the rest of us poor people. Many giving up. Many suicides.

Yet, this thread ...........sinks.

That says it all, doesn't it?

[LiberalAndProud]

13. Maybe it says it all. Or maybe there is nothng left to say?

It has been said that the poor will be with us always. I didn't think it was intended as a commandment, though.

[bobbolink]

15. Not always. We will soon die off. I know that doesn't matter, but I say it anyway.

[JonLP24]

14. K&R