Author: Northwest Justice Project

Charles Carman says his goal was to provide cheap accommodations for low-income people who could grow their own food and maybe even develop an agricultural co-op on his 20-acre property. But when Whatcom County Planning and Development Services inspectors visited the site in the summer of 2013, they found numerous health and safety code violations. They also discovered that an RV, mobile homes and other dwellings on the property had never received the required county permits but were being rented to tenants.

Immigration authorities must grant bond hearings to immigrants at the Northwest Detention Center who are picked up by immigration authorities months and sometimes years after resolving their criminal cases in state court and returning to their communities.
Click here to read the order.

Debt collection practices continue to be a major source of consumer complaints for state and national agencies, and consumer protection advocates are calling for reform. And the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, has been working on revamping rules regarding debt collection.

Too many poor people in the U.S. lack access to lawyers when they confront major life challenges, including eviction, deportation, custody battles and domestic violence, according to a new report by advocates at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Clinic.

The Legislature passes 3 bills to help foster children and other at-risk kids.

Lawmakers at both the state and federal level are searching for ways to help homeless students, and a program at a Tacoma school has served as a model for some of the legislation.

He was a thrill-seeker in cowboy boots who piloted planes, scuba-dived in exotic seas and sought to appease a lifelong obsession with speed through vintage sports cars and high-revving motorbikes.
But within the courtroom, Tom Chambers exuded an almost ministerial humility as a champion for the underdog — a personal quality borne from his humble upbringing in small-town Eastern Washington.

Yao Fou Hinh Chao almost lost his Seattle home to a mortgage scam. “I lived here 35 years,” he said, “and the last one was a nightmare year for me.”

A bill stuck in the Legislature could make a difference for young people when they are most alone and in need.

Facing a foreclosure date is bad but having items removed from your home before that fateful day is worse. Now a Pierce County man is suing his bank with the help of the Northwest Justice Project, saying it hired a contractor who stole items from his home months before he was supposed to move out.