LOS ANGELES — Lorenza and German Artiga raised six children in a rent-controlled bungalow here, their only home since they moved from El Salvador 29 years ago. So they were stunned this past summer when their landlord served them with eviction papers, claiming that their 12-year-old granddaughter Carolyn, whose mother was killed in a car crash in 2007, was an illegal occupant.

The Foreclosure Prevention and Housing Outreach Coalition will show the film “American Winter” on Thursday at The Seasons, 101 N. Naches Ave.

Patients can now sort out their social security benefits and get their blood pressure checked — all in one visit to the doctor’s office. The Cowlitz Family Health Center is offering legal services to any local, low-income families every Thursday at its Longview clinic, 1057 12th Ave. The service, provided by the Northwest Justice Project, is just another way for the health center to serve its patients, said Julie Nye, a nurse and quality administrator at the Family Health Center.

Seattle home prices have rebounded dramatically in the past 18 months, with more than a 9.5 percent increase in median home sales prices from 2012 to 2013, nearly bringing median prices to pre-recession heights seen in 2007. Zillow reports that 92.5 percent of Seattle-metro area homes are in positive equity positions, putting the Seattle-metro area among the top five areas in the nation.
This should be good news, but what about those who have not benefitted from the upward market?

A for-profit education company that owns six Everest College campuses in Washington is under investigation for predatory lending practices.

Bureau Seeks More than $500 Million In Relief For Borrowers of Corinthian’s Private Student Loans
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) sued for-profit college chain Corinthian Colleges, Inc. for its illegal predatory lending scheme. The Bureau alleges that Corinthian lured tens of thousands of students to take out private loans to cover expensive tuition costs by advertising bogus job prospects and career services. Corinthian then used illegal debt collection tactics to strong-arm students into paying back those loans while still in school. To protect current and past students of the Corinthian schools, the Bureau is seeking to halt these practices and is requesting the court to grant relief to the students who collectively have taken out more than $500 million in private student loans.

WASHINGTON – Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.S. Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Antonin Scalia, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will join more than 100 leaders of the legal community, government, and the private sector September 14-16 at a wide-ranging legal aid conference in Washington to mark the 40th anniversary of the Legal Services Corporation.

A new study finds that the emergency extensions of unemployment benefits during the recession went a long way toward preventing mortgage defaults, even more than government programs meant to prevent foreclosures by focusing only on reducing monthly payments.

When Sal Mendoza Jr. reads the inscription on the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington D.C., he sees more than words in “Equal Justice Under Law.” It’s because of that phrase that a migrant kid from Prosser took the oath Friday as a U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of Washington, he explained.

The court will monitor foster care reform until the state meets all the requirements from the ’98 Braam v. Washington suit.