Don’t wait: Local housing advocates explain what to do when eviction looms

A Way Home — Housing Solutions: This story is part of Southwest Michigan Second Wave’s series on solutions to homelessness and ways to increase low-income and affordable housing. It is made possible by a coalition of funders, including Kalamazoo County, the ENNA Foundation, and Kalamazoo County Land Bank.

Landlords want their property undamaged. They want tenants not to disturb the surrounding neighborhood. They want the rent on time.

Tenants want somewhere to live.

The landlord and tenant relationship can be messy.

Before an issue for you as a renter or as a landlord snowballs into an eviction, seek help.

There is a legal system in place that allows housing providers (landlords) to evict problem tenants. And tenants have the right to defend themselves from what could be an unfair, unlawful eviction.

If you’re facing a “notice to vacate” as a tenant, where do you even start? How does a tenant present a case if they don’t know the complexities of rental law? Especially, vulnerable tenants who have disabilities, those who face discrimination, or those in situations where they are simply not at fault?

To get an understanding of what’s at stake, we sat down with Donald Roberts, managing attorney at Legal Aid of Western Michigan; Beth Romeo, Executive Director at the Fair Housing Center of Southwest Michigan; Sarah Cain, Executive Director of Kalamazoo Housing Advocates, and Marla LeMae, Director of Programs for KHA. We spoke at KHA’s new Downtown Kalamazoo offices on Rose Street.

Messy situations, complicated legalities

If served a notice to vacate, what should you do? Get a lawyer? Fight it yourself? Turn to an organization like KHA or FHCSM, which can help guide one through the process?

Going it alone and seeing success, “depends on the evidence in the situation,” Romeo says. “But for most of the clients that we interact with who end up representing themselves, it does not end well in their case. And they end up getting evicted.”

For those who don’t know the law, it gets complicated. 

As an example, an “order to vacate,” Romeo says, is sometimes “classified as an eviction, sometimes it’s not.”

LeMae says, “Sometimes there’s a consent order — conditional dismissal. Sometimes that will include language that holds each party harmless. Like, as long as you move out by this date, then we’re all straight.” 

If there’s an agreement before the case ends up in court, then that’s a good thing. Because “eviction history follows people,” Romeo says.

Even if a tenant wins the case in court and can stay in the dwelling, such cases can haunt them and hurt their ability to lease in the future.

Roberts points out that potential landlords can simply plug a potential tenant’s name into MICourt, an online database of most Michigan court cases (with some exceptions), and see their history of disputes. 

MICourt doesn’t include all the details of a case; it doesn’t show if there was an eviction or if it was decided for the tenant. But it can show a case title of  “[Housing Provider] V [Tenant Name].” Someone whose name appears on one, or a few, case titles like that will not-so-mysteriously find it difficult to sign a lease for a new house or apartment.

Roberts says if all parties agree, it may be possible to amend the caption of a housing case to change a defendant’s name to a “Jane Doe,” “but everybody has to agree to it.”

And having all parties agree to anything in tenant/landlord cases can be difficult. 

These can be disagreements that go beyond not paying the rent on time. We asked for some examples, and Romeo gave a few after she clarified that FHCSM is “a civil rights organization that helps people navigate housing discrimination.” 

“So at the federal level, there are seven protected characteristics: Race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, and family status.” These traits are safeguarded by law against discriminatory practices. 

The State of Michigan includes sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, age, and source of income as protected characteristics. Criminal history is protected by the City of Kalamazoo, and Portage includes height and weight.

The Fair Housing Center of Southwest Michigan covers Kalamazoo and surrounding counties.”We work with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights to file administrative complaints for clients and find them relief.”

An example that falls in the area of disability: A leaseholder had another person move in as a roommate. The leaseholder moved out abruptly, but the roommate wanted to stay and put the lease in their name.

“To our knowledge, there had been no issues, there had been no complaints, no write-ups, anything like that,” Romeo says.

The landlord discovered that the roommate had a support animal, “and they didn’t like the breed type.”

(Romeo later tells us that the person did end up evicted, “because they were not the primary leaseholder…. But what made the situation concerning from a fair housing perspective was that the issue with the service animal’s breed appeared to become part of the conversation once the landlord learned the animal was there. These situations are often more nuanced than a simple ‘right or wrong’ answer. A more collaborative solution could have been exploring whether the individual could qualify to take over the lease and then evaluating a reasonable accommodation request for the support animal under fair housing laws.” )

Issues with disabilities are most common in the cases they see, Romeo says. But then there are cases of alleged harassment or other criminal behavior that can get very complicated.

A recent non-Kalamazoo case involved a shared single-family house. A single man lived in one room, and a family of husband, wife, and female child lived in another. They shared all the common spaces.

“So the male roommate would often walk around nude in front of the women,” Romeo says.  There was alleged “sexual harassment, hostile living environment, that kind of thing.”

The family complained to the landlord, “But it’s alleged that the landlord is friends with the person,” the single male roommate. The landlord accused the family of “causing problems,” she says.

“Long story short, (the court) essentially took the side of the person causing the harm and moved forward with eviction for the family.”

The family is now unhoused, trying to find a place to stay while living with family members.

(“Harassment cases are some of the hardest fair housing matters to address,” Romeo tells us in a follow-up conversation. There are usually no witnesses or documentation. Survivors end up having to prove the harassment happened while also trying to keep their housing. “This case highlights some of the very real challenges survivors face when trying to navigate housing systems,” she says.)

Tenant advocates see some messy situations.

“It’s all messy,” Romeo says.

KHA also sees many cases involving disputes over dog breeds and disabilities, Cain and LeMae say.

A landlord might say specific breeds are prohibited by their insurance, Cain says. “There’s been instances where I said, ‘Let me see a copy of your policy that explicitly says that they don’t take pitbulls.’ And then they, of course, can’t produce it.” 

There are many cases where tenants with disabilities, seniors, or people without technology have difficulty navigating online rental payment portals. Or, a tenant may not understand notes from property management, which can range in clarity from detailed but obtuse printouts to hand-written notes saying “Knock it off!”

“A lot of what I see is people legitimately don’t understand why they’re getting this notice or why there’s a challenge,” Romeo says. 

One person with a disability whom Romeo had worked with liked to wander the premises and talk to other tenants. This was his first independent living experience, she says, and “he didn’t quite comprehend those social boundaries. He’s an adult, his mother advocates for him a lot, but because he’s an adult, they (the landlords) refuse to talk to the mom.”

KHA also sees quite a few domestic violence instances, Cain says. 

These can involve multiple police calls to a property, and that can lead to claims that a tenant is violating the lease. 

Sometimes, one needs an attorney

Cain asks Roberts, “Regarding domestic violence situations and multiple police presences at a location, which would then cause a landlord to say, ‘I’m not going to renew your lease,’ or evict — my question is, is that legal?”

“No,” the lawyer says, without hesitation. There could be exceptions, Roberts adds, but “No, it’s not (legal). We get that police presence thing all the time, especially in public housing.”

Kalamazoo Housing Advocates and Fair Housing Center of Southwest Michigan provide guidance and navigational help for tenants in danger of becoming unhoused, but they are careful to say they cannot provide legal advice or legal representation. 

But Legal Aid of Western Michigan is there with free legal advice and possible representation for eligible tenants if the disagreement heads to court. “Legal Aid has a staff attorney present during the court’s first hearing on the eviction docket, who provides tenants with legal information and assists them in applying for legal assistance (from LAWM).”

LAWM is a nonprofit law office, offering free legal help for those in or near poverty and seniors entangled in civil (non-criminal) cases ranging from housing to domestic violence.

Roberts and LAWM attorneys are a daily presence in the 8th District’s landlord/tenant court. 

“Monday’s the first hearing day,” he says. “We’ve got our intake attorney there, and sometimes some other people, it depends on schedules and so forth…. We’ve been doing that for, well, 22 years.”

Roberts’ advice for both tenants and housing providers in dispute is “Don’t wait.” Don’t let the situation deteriorate, and once the legal process gets rolling, don’t put off your response.

The process starts when a landlord gives written notice that they intend to take action against their tenant. Such notice is required.

If the dispute is about non-payment of rent, for example, there’ll be “the seven-day notice — pay or move in seven days,” Roberts says.

“If you don’t move or pay in seven days, then that gives them the standing to go file a complaint in court. And then the court’s process goes from there. It’s usually a week to 10 days after (landlords) file. And then there’s a first hearing where they give you your rights,” he says.

“Then, if there’s a judgment entered after you have a hearing or a trial, you’ve got 10 days to come up with the money to pay, or move out. Then, if you don’t pay or move out, they can apply for an order of eviction. Not another hearing, they just do an application. And then they get a signed court order handed off to a court officer. And then they will come out and serve you. “

In Kalamazoo, “theoretically, they can come out and serve you and toss you out that day. But what they usually do is come out, serve you, and give you 24 hours to leave,” Roberts says.

Again, there can be complications that only an attorney can navigate. A tenant may have money on the way, and the money may arrive a short time after the 10 days. The landlord may refuse to accept payment at that point. Lawyers for the tenant “often get involved in filing a motion to stay, saying, ‘Here’s the money, it’s three days late.’ “

Roberts laughs while describing a precedent set by a pre-Civil War US Supreme Court case, “that deals with renting a canal lock. And there’s some newer stuff too… Anyway, and for the most part, the judges will often say, ‘Well, if they’ve got the money, pay.'”

All in the room agree that the complexities in tenant/landlord law are not well-handled by laypersons.

Cain points out that KHA has seen people acting as landlords who “don’t necessarily follow the law — or they don’t know.” In one situation, a KHA  client was in danger of being evicted, and they found that the property wasn’t “City certified (as a rental)….  When the judge finds that out, then they’re, like, ‘What are you even doing here?'”

There can be some very casual landlord/tenant relationships, with rent coming in through Venmo payments. “Which is really lovely for keeping track of — I mean, it’s just blurring that personal and business,” Romeo says.

LeMae points out that tenants often don’t know what kind of situation they’re in, and don’t know to look up certain information, “because no one’s bothered to bring up the matter.” KHA will look up the information for clients and let them know “what their legal rights are. We don’t do legal advice, but we do know what people’s rights are.”

Romeo says, “It’s hard. People don’t always know how to advocate for themselves.” In the courtroom, before a judge, “people can put their foot in their mouth. Or not explain to the detail that’s helpful for a court to give them (the tenant) the best foot forward.”

Cain says that the court process is very intimidating for someone trying to keep their home. “They’re most likely going through a lot of trauma and stress in their life already, and then they’re in front of this intimidating surrounding, trying to share their story and probably not knowing what they can and cannot say, so they’re more than likely not going to say anything but agree to what the judge is saying, right?” 

Caseload

Another big reason for a tenant to seek help quickly is that the lawyers of Legal Aid of Western Michigan have a huge caseload.

Roberts says, “There’s one of us for every 10,000 potential clients…. And if you look at regular lawyers, there’s one non-Legal Aid lawyer for every, I think it’s, 340 or 350 potential clients. So there’s a disparity.” 

He adds that some of their attorneys are leaving the area, one has retired… Roberts counts on his fingers. There are four LAWM lawyers at the moment, “if you count me.” 

Roberts had been thinking about retirement. “I said I’d stay until the end of July.”

Has the housing caseload been increasing in the past few years? Has it become more overwhelming?

“It’s always been overwhelming!” Roberts says to exasperated laughter. “Since 1982,” back when he was a law student working at a landlord-tenant clinic in Detroit. “You’d get off the elevator, and there’d be a line of people outside your door waiting to talk to you before the court.”

The first step

Aside from seeking help from LAWM, KHA, and FHCSM, where should someone turn if facing eviction?  What’s the first step?

Housing Resources, Inc. should be the first step for someone in danger of losing their housing, they say. “They can help do the triage,” Romeo says.

HRI is the local HARA, a Housing Assessment and Resource Agency. HARAs are recognized by the State of Michigan as agencies that guide people in a housing crisis through the Coordinated Entry system. 

Coordinated Entry is meant to focus on individual cases and guide them to the needed help. It’s then that the case might be aimed at smaller orgs, sent to get legal help, or towards other remedies. 

“We need to get into the habit of going through the HARA for the coordinated entry process for all things related to housing,” Cain says. 

What all in the room agree on is that people’s natural tendency to say “I have enough on my plate, I’ll figure it out later,” is not helpful.

“Just asking for help — I mean, so many people just don’t know, or they think they know,” where they stand legally, Romeo says. 

Cain says, “What I would love to see is somebody come to us when they know they’re going to be behind in rent. Before rent is due, and you know you’re not going to have your rent money, get out there.” 

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If You’re Facing Eviction: Steps to Take

• Don’t wait. The moment you think you might have trouble paying rent — even before it’s due — start seeking help. Acting early gives you the most options.
  
• Contact Housing Resources, Inc. (HRI) first. They are the local Housing Assessment and Resource Agency (HARA) and can triage your situation and connect you to the right resources through Michigan’s Coordinated Entry system.
  
• Reach out to Kalamazoo Housing Advocates (KHA) or the Fair Housing Center of Southwest Michigan (FHCSM). They can help you understand your rights and navigate the process — especially if discrimination or a disability is involved. They cannot give legal advice, but they know the law and can guide you.
  
• Respond to any notice you receive immediately. A written notice (such as a 7-day “pay or vacate” notice) is the start of a legal clock. Missing deadlines can cost you your home and hurt your rental history long-term.
  
• Seek free legal help through Legal Aid of Western Michigan (LAWM). They have an attorney present at the court’s first eviction hearing and offer free representation to those in or near poverty. Apply early — their caseload is large.
  
• Do not try to represent yourself if you can avoid it. Those who go it alone rarely succeed, and even if you win a case, you can appear in the MICourt online database and make it harder to rent in the future.
  

Know your protected rights. Eviction cannot legally be based on race, disability, family status, sexual orientation, source of income, domestic violence situations, and more. If you think discrimination is a factor, contact FHCSM.