April Shabbaz lives in a Kansas City apartment with her brother, son, daughter and 20-year-old grandson.
All of the adults have low-wage jobs. This past fall, one of them abruptly lost their job, and the household fell behind on rent.
“Once you get behind on something, it is extremely hard to catch up because… you still have your new bills that are coming in,” she said.
Shabbaz applied for rental and utility assistance and ended up on a waiting list. At the same time, her landlord filed for an eviction, and Shabbaz didn’t receive the court summons until two days before her hearing date.
She was able to quickly get support from a free lawyer from the Heartland Center For Jobs and Freedom nonprofit law group, who got her court date postponed to allow her rental assistance applications to go through.
Shabbaz was able to stay in her home. But she knows many people haven’t been so lucky.
“If you’re already a low-wage worker…you don’t have money to get a lawyer,” she said. “These landlords, they have lawyers. So you’re standing there in court, and you don’t have nobody to represent you. You’re basically being railroaded.”
Across the country, 90% of landlords have access to attorneys during eviction proceedings, compared to 1% of tenants, according to estimates from the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel. It’s a trend that Missouri follows as well,...
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