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3rd Quarter 2007 Executive Summary

View entire 3rd Quarter 2007 Advocacy Report

During the Fall of 2007, the Northwest Justice Project (NJP) opened three new offices to better serve our client communities on the Olympic Peninsula and in Southwest Washington. With three attorneys and one legal assistant in each office, NJP opened its doors to much excitement and warm welcomes from the communities in Port Angeles, Aberdeen and Longview. The presence of attorneys in these regions, along with the continuing availability of CLEAR (Coordinated Legal Education, Advice and Referral) as the primary point of intake, referral and limited assistance, plus added capacity in other regions of the state provides NJP the opportunity to make significant inroads toward meeting the high priority civil legal needs of all low income persons in Washington.

While the new NJP offices have “hit the ground running”, NJP has continued to address the critical legal needs through ongoing case work, community education and other local advocacy activities. Daily, NJP staff help vulnerable individuals solve complex legal problems and simpler issues that become complex in the absence of immediate legal help. For example, in the third quarter of 2007, NJP’s Tacoma office helped a former Western State Hospital patient avoid a large debt for the cost of his care when the state Court of Appeals ruled that the state could not require patients such as NJP’s client to personally bear these costs. NJP’s Tacoma office also helped a 63 year old quadriplegic man retain his right to use paratransit services, which were terminated by the local public transportation authority solely because the man obtained a power wheelchair.

This quarter, a significant portion of NJP’s work was in the area of housing preservation. NJP now assists more clients threatened with losing homes through foreclosure, some due to fraudulent predatory lending practices. In one case, NJP’s Seattle office helped a couple who after a substantial period of unemployment, fell behind on their mortgage. To save their home, they entered into a “sale-leaseback transaction”, which proved to be a fraudulent refinance loan at an excessive interest rate. When the “lenders” sought to remove the couple from the home, NJP was able to stave off the eviction and negotiate a settlement that gave the couple most of the equity value they had built in the home. The problems faced by this couple are similar to those of many other people who in desperation enter into financial schemes (such as payday loans and tax refund anticipation loans) that only result in greater more onerous debt. In addition to helping individuals who have been victimized by predatory lenders, NJP is working with others to identify lower interest financial options and other remedies for low-income persons statewide.

These are just a few examples of how public investment in legal aid helps people to help themselves and to prevent other costly problems such as homelessness and onerous debt. Even with the added state support that allowed for NJP expansion, we continue to meet only a fraction of the total need.

For additional examples of NJP’s work during the third quarter of 2007, contact Lisa Giuffré at the Northwest Justice Project, (206) 464-1519, ext. 253 or at lisag@nwjustice.org

Cases of particular interest during this period include:

NJP’s Bellingham office represented the mother of a 4-month-old child in obtaining a writ of habeas corpus and emergency temporary orders for custody, after her child was taken by the father in violation of a criminal no-contact order. The mother, a victim of severe domestic violence, was lured to another jurisdiction by the father, who forced her to leave the child with him. To insure she did not call the police, he had two relatives accompany her on a bus back to Bellingham. When the writ was obtained, NJP succeeded in having the child returned safely to the mother, and having the court enter a temporary parenting plan that allowed only supervised visitation for the father.

NJP’s CLEAR assisted a monolingual Spanish-speaking man who made numerous attempts to contact his local Housing Authority. The client had been unable to access services in his native language, and was unable to determine whether he was on a waitlist for housing. NJP contacted the Housing Authority’s Limited English Proficient compliance officer, and the Housing Authority agreed to provide the client with direct access to a Spanish-speaking representative pending planned improvements in their application status systems.

NJP’s CLEAR helped a client qualify for public housing after denial due to a debt she owed a former landlord. The former landlord was unwilling to accept a reasonable payment plan and demanded full repayment of the debt, which the client could not afford. NJP worked with the client to prepare a payment plan offer letter to the landlord. After the landlord refused to accept the client’s offer, NJP wrote the local Housing Authority describing the client’s efforts to pay the debt and enclosed a copy of the offer letter. In response, the Housing Authority approved the client for public housing.

NJP’s CLEAR*Sr. assisted an 85 year-old woman living alone who received charges from an adult-themed phone service that claimed the client had made calls from her telephone to their line. The company first charged her credit card, but the client disputed the charges and her credit card company reversed them. Thereafter, the client received several letters threatening collection if she didn’t pay. NJP contacted the company and it agreed not to bill the client further.

An NJP CAP attorney represents a monolingual Spanish speaker in Walla Walla to establish a parenting plan with limited visitation to help protect her asthmatic child from his father’s cigarette smoke and alcoholism. The child’s doctor insisted that the child should not be around anyone who smokes but the father refuses to stop smoking and drinking around the child.
NJP’s Everett office assisted a senior client who survived cancer but had many other health problems and inadequate income for her bills. The client had regular Medicare for medical expenses but no coverage for medications. She expected to start Medicare Part D coverage for prescription drugs at age 65. Instead, she was denied enrollment on the ground that her disability status provided for an earlier enrollment period, which had now expired. She was told she had no new enrollment option at age 65 and had to wait to reapply for 2008. NJP documented the client’s many contacts with Social Security during the time this problem could have been corrected. Agency staff had been confused about this new prescription program and gave the client incorrect information about enrollment. NJP presented the matter to the regional office of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid. The staff there granted the client a “special enrollment period” and set up the Medicare computers to allow her to enroll immediately. She now has coverage to pay for her medications.

NJP’s Everett office represented a disabled single mother whose Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher had been terminated by the housing authority. She had an outstanding balance on her utility bill from her former home. When the housing authority learned of this, they notified her that she had to pay the full outstanding utility bill by a deadline they set or her voucher would be terminated. The client paid her utility bill and sent proof of that payment before the deadline. Regardless, her voucher was terminated. NJP filed a lawsuit claiming violation of the Federal laws governing the Section 8 program, denial of due process and deprivation of her rights, privileges and immunities. The case settled, with the housing authority agreeing to reinstate the voucher from the time of initial termination, pay her landlord any rent that had gone unpaid during that period and reimburse the client for rent she was forced to pay out of pocket. The client received 8 months of back rental assistance and continuing eligibility for the future.

NJP’s Farm Worker Unit assisted a farm worker to clear up an unemployment insurance overpayment that resulted from identity theft. The farm worker had been assessed an overpayment for allegedly receiving unemployment benefits, even though the client explained that he had not claimed benefits for that period of time. It turned out that the tax preparer that he had gone to for years had used information that she obtained through that relationship to claim benefits on his behalf and keep those benefits for herself. NJP was able to show that the client did not receive these benefits, and he will not have to pay the assessed overpayment.

NJP’s Olympia office assisted a survivor of domestic abuse with a child custody matter in Pacific County. Prior to the involvement of NJP, the judge deprived the client of the opportunity to present her own case. The judge had permitted the other parent to put on several days of testimony at trial from various witnesses. Although the client had subpoenaed many witnesses, the judge refused to let her call a single witness, chastised her for her poor parenting and gave the father substantially more visitation pending a report from the Guardian Ad Litem. At this point, NJP became actively involved. The client and the domestic violence advocate from the local shelter both perceived that the very presence of an NJP attorney changed the judge’s attitude. Although a final order was entered, the other parent filed a Request for Reconsideration. NJP filed a response on behalf of the client and the Request was subsequently denied. NJP continues to represent the client because of ongoing problems with visitation.

NJP’s Olympia office helped a senior couple who both receive DSHS long term care benefits. Because DSHS counted income that the couple did not actually receive, they were $400 short each month on the payment to their assisted living facility. Family members loaned the clients money for several months to cover the bill, but those resources were soon exhausted. After many months of working with DSHS to fix this with no success, the facility sent the clients a Notice of Discharge saying they had to move out by the end of the month. The couple was already in debt from borrowing money for the incorrect bill and could not afford to move, nor did they want to leave the facility that had been their home for years. NJP analyzed the clients' income and deductions and obtained verification from the VA proving that the clients did not and could not have received the $400 income that DSHS was counting. NJP sent this verification to DSHS, along with a demand letter citing the applicable laws and requesting that DSHS correct the clients' bill. Based on this information, DSHS corrected their figures and paid the outstanding back amount due to the facility. The facility withdrew the Notice of Discharge and the clients are no longer threatened with unwarranted monthly bills or eviction.

NJP’s Olympia office helped a Grays Harbor senior whose landlord would not make requested repairs to her home. Her stove was dangerous, and neither the range nor the oven worked properly. Her residence was infested with cockroaches, her toilet leaked, her front door lock was broken, and the door did not fit the frame so badly that light came through the crack between the door and the frame. Although the client had requested repairs orally and in writing, the landlord did not follow up on promises to make repairs. NJP sent the landlord a demand letter, citing the landlord's legal obligation to resolve these deficiencies. The landlord started repairs immediately and also transferred the account to another real estate agent who is much more responsive to the client's concerns.

NJP’s Seattle office represented a couple who lost substantially all of their savings through a combination of investment losses and prolonged unemployment thereafter. The family owned a home in a Seattle suburb; however, by 2004 the couple had become insolvent and defaulted on the mortgage loan. Because they were still unemployed, the couple could not secure financing to reinstate or refinance their loan. Seeking to avoid foreclosure, the couple entered into a “sale-leaseback transaction” by which they conveyed their property to a group of “investors” for pennies on the dollar, in return for which the couple retained the right to live in the home as renters and buy back the property after they returned to work. The “sale-leaseback transaction” was a thinly-veiled refinance loan and an unqualified consumer scam; expressed as an annualized rate, the transaction bore interest at over 29% and ultimately caused the family to forfeit both the house and roughly $300,000 in equity. NJP prevailed at hearings in August 2006 and July 2007, in which the investors had asserted their “title” to the home and sought to remove the couple from the property, and after prolonged litigation, ultimately negotiated a settlement whereby the couple received $97,000 cash up front, with the home to be sold and the family to receive an estimated $190,000 more from the proceeds.

NJP’s Seattle office brought an action on behalf of a family facing termination from a local public housing authority’s (PHA) Section 8 Voucher program, contending that the PHA’s “hearing” process to review the termination dispute would not afford constitutionally-required due process to the family. The federal court enjoined the PHA from holding the “hearing,” finding “serious questions” as to whether the tribunal would afford due process. The federal court ruled that a PHA must provide all of the procedural safeguards of “full administrative review” prior to termination from the Section 8 program, not less-stringent “preliminary determination” review.

NJP’s Spokane office assisted a Native American family obtain a judgment for money owed them based on a housing contract. The husband and wife believed they entered into a lease to own contract for real property and a house on the Colville Indian Reservation. The house was not in sound condition when the clients moved in, but they made substantial improvements. The “seller” alleged that she and the clients never entered into a purchase agreement and that she should benefit from major improvements that the family had made to the home. The “seller” served the client with some type of “eviction” notice by email and notified all members of the tribal council and the client’s boss at the tribal complex. The “seller” also engaged in other bullying tactics within the community. NJP appeared in Colville Tribal Court and sought reimbursement for the improvements the clients made to the house. The judge fuled that an equitable remedy was appropriate and that the “seller” had been unjustly enriched and ordered her to pay the clients $6,680. The “seller” still had not paid after several months, so NJP filed an enforcement action. After a hearing the parties were able to reach an appropriate settlement.

NJP’s Tacoma office represented a 53-year-old, former Western State Hospital patient in judicial review proceedings to appeal a DSHS administrative order that he must pay for part of the cost of his care at the mental hospital. The client, who had been committed to the hospital to assess and restore his competency to stand trial on criminal charges, argued that the order that he must pay for his competency restoration commitment violated state statutory and constitutional prohibitions against charging a criminal defendant any costs associated with his prosecution. A Thurston County Superior Court Judge agreed and issued an order in June 2006 invalidating the regulation that requires such patients to pay for their commitment. The State Court of Appeals Division II affirmed the trial court in a published opinion issued in September 2007.

NJP’s Tacoma office represented a 63-year-old quadriplegic nursing home resident in an administrative hearing to appeal the local transit authority’s decision to reduce the level of ADA paratransit services he receives. The transit authority reduced the paratransit services that the client had received for over 30 years, and began requiring that the client use regular bus service for certain trips after he obtained a power wheelchair that increased his functional ability to board and ride a regular bus. A hearing officer restored the client’s full paratransit eligibility after an administrative hearing in which NJP presented testimony from the client’s treating doctor who stated that requiring the client to wait for regular bus service in potentially inclement weather at bus stops and transit stations could seriously impact the client’s health.

NJP’s Wenatchee office is providing services to a developmentally disabled senior who is being threatened with eviction from the home in which she has lived for over 30 years. The home belonged to the client’s mother who is now in her nineties, suffers from dementia and was recently moved into an assisted living facility. The client, while developmentally disabled, is highly functional and now lives independently in her mother's home. The client's nephew is claiming 50% ownership of the home, and is attempting to sell it. He has served the client with several "termination of tenancy" notices in an attempt to force the client out of the home. The client does not want to leave the home and appears entitled to inherit a 100% interest in the home under her mother's will. NJP is working with Adult Protective Services to prevent the client’s eviction and to investigate allegations of elder abuse.

NJP’s Wenatchee office responded to an emergency call from two families on a late Friday afternoon after their rental units had been flooded earlier that day with raw sewage that had backed up from a clogged sewer line. The landlord was insisting that the units were safe for human habitation even though the flooring and walls were still damp with sewage, and there was at least one child on the premises who was still crawling. NJP assisted the clients in obtaining emergency hotel vouchers from a local non-profit, documented the condition of the units, and arranged for inspections by local code enforcement agencies. NJP then referred the case to a private attorney.

NJP’s Yakima office successfully settled a custody modification matter involving a monolingual Spanish speaking woman who was a victim of domestic violence. Her husband had obtained a default judgment in a dissolution 11 years ago, granting the husband custody and ordering the wife to pay child support. This occurred despite the fact that the couple continued to live together for 11 more years. The wife raised the children and took care of the household and worked extensively outside the home. After a violent incident, the couple separated and the husband requested the assistance of the Division of Child Support to force the wife to pay a huge child support arrearage. In addition, the old order granted custody to the husband of the last children still living in the household. NJP filed a modification action on behalf of the wife and obtained custody of the 13-year old daughter. The court ordered that the husband should have no contact with the children until he receives treatment and/or successfully completes parenting classes.