All right.

Well then we'll call this meeting in order.

Turn it over to you all, I think.

Turning it right back over to you.

Is it over to our guests?

What do I pass it off too?

Yeah.

And we will ready?

I've got it.

Okay.

All right.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

Well, good evening, everyone.

Thank you for allowing us to come back and present an update on our access to council pilot.

I would I would have a joke about how many times I'm here.

But I'm excited to be back again this Wednesday.

We love so before we get started.

I really want to recognize our partners in the room who have really helped make this possible.

So we have folks from Montgomery County.

I'm sorry, City of Dayton, Clerk of Court, advocates for basic legal equality, learn to earn.

Omega is not, I'm not sure if anybody from Omega C of Mega is one of our partners.

And then we have Stout, who is the organization that did the comprehensive evaluation where you're going to hear a lot of the updates from how our pilot is feeling, how it's been doing over the last year and a half.

And I also want to say I'm thankful to the many community partners that have worked with us to help launch this.

I mean, there's been a lot of work that's happened over the years, as you know, as we have come together as a community, think about how collectively we are addressing issues of housing instability and the eviction crisis that has been happening over the last few years, really across the country.

And so again, as you know, from learn to earn perspective, we're really driven by a mission to think about ways in which we can improve student outcomes and think about ways in which we can identify opportunities for social and economic mobility for students and families.

And one of the things that we know to be true is how housing instability and eviction directly impact student outcomes, specifically around the areas of chronic absenteeism.

And so for us, it's really important that we think about innovative opportunities to address that.

With that being said, you can see here, I'm not going to go through everything that that's on the next two slides, but again, it's really a commitment to the many community partners, City of Dayton leadership, um, our researchers, our advocates, our residents who have dedicated time to thinking about how we address the eviction through policy, public education opportunities, national learning communities, um to talk about how we build some stability within within our communities.

And so from all of these conversations and all these learnings in 2023, there was really a growing consensus that we needed to do something to launch some evidence-based practices that we know work and have worked across the country.

And that's what led us to the pilot that we're going to talk about today, where we launched a little over a year ago in November of 2024.

And as you all know, can as you all know, the critical need, we saw real critical needs specifically after the pandemic when existing disparities that it exacerbated existing disparities in the community.

And we know that as some of the protections lifted after the pandemic, and we we saw some housing uh rising costs with housing, our families are really struggling to remain safely and stably housed.

We also know that there is a massive imbalance in the eviction court when it comes to representation.

So about 98% of our tenants self-represent, with 90% being represented of landlords.

And so that can disproportionately harm our families, especially when they're seeking assistance after being evicted, trying to get housed and trying to get and remain um attached to community services in the community.

Um with all of that being said, um, you know, we're really excited to talk about some of the results that we've seen as a result of the access to council pilot.

Um it's really an example of how we come together over around a shared outcome and work to uh create stability in the community.

So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Emma to talk about um some eviction data and some of the things that we've seen.

The pilot.

Yeah, so we're gonna start with level setting, which is just where we're at.

Um this goes through December 2024.

So uh, we will add 2025 numbers um in as we get the data.

But you can see that we're already 2024.

We had um a huge, oh we had a huge influx of eviction filings um from the previous years.

And this is this number is about uh we're a little over 6,000, I believe, in 2025.

So it's it's in continuing to go up.

Uh these are the uh again eviction filings by zip code.

Um this is two years worth of data.

Um six and oh five are continuously our most common uh zip codes where evictions are filed, and then one seven is a close um third.

Um and then just like what Erica was discussing.

We um for tenant representation, we see about 98% are self-represented.

Able um can do another about one and a half percent, and then uh half a percent are a private lawyer.

Um and that 98% of self-representation is actually a higher amount than nation nationally, so nationally it's closer to it's you know 96 to 97.

So again, this is through 2024.

So we expect our 2025 number this to change because um we were able to fund able to represent more.

And then again, you can see that about 90 percent of property owners are represented by um legal counsel, which we know most a lot of them are LLCs and don't have a choice, but um, it still creates a power and balance.

Okay, so um wanna just remind you of the uh what our what the pilot included, the elements of the pilot.

So free legal representation and eviction actions to 125 families in the city of Dayton.

And we're gonna get to some data in a little bit here that shows what that actually equated to in terms of uh uh people numbers because it's like it's 125 households, right?

And so um we'll get to that.

A full-time staff attorney, Paul is here.

Wait, that's our full-time staff attorney um with support from Perilegal Administrative Assistant and a part-time social worker, which is best in here.

Um comprehensive sustainable data platform to identify fiscal financial community impact.

So that's the work we're doing with Stout.

So you're gonna see some of those results here in a minute.

We also built out the intake uh capabilities at ABLE to be able to do a comprehensive intake, which is how we get all the data that gets to STOT and then gets reported out.

So that was a big um uh capacity building activity in the very beginning of the pilot.

Because as you know, very little data is actually collected on evictions.

Um, and so this is really helping us paint a picture of what's happening in the city, and then our data-driven evaluation and ROI.

So we will get to that as well.

But we wanted to, so I've talked to um access to council programs throughout the country uh at this point, maybe all of them.

Everyone, it's it's a small and like um everyone trying to figure out the same problems, right?

So everyone wants to talk to each other, find out how they're working, find out what they're doing.

And um thing that I think sets us apart from the programs that I've talked to is our uh our our Dustin, our social worker.

Um and I and I really wanted to give him some time to um talk about his work and the impact that I think having a social worker on staff does to help our families um and and try and not make this a cyclical issue.

So um I wanted Dustin to have some time to talk.

Thank you.

Um so my name's Dustin Hughes, and um what I do with while working with our clients.

First, I let them meet with the attorneys.

Uh so uh Paul can get a sense of what the client wants, whether it's stay in their home or if they think finding different housing is better and kind of get a game plan that way.

And then I meet with Paul to see what I can help the client achieve.

Um, and then I meet with a client.

I created a needs assessment that I've uh edited over time to make sure I'm encapsulating any kind of barriers or obstacles or um gaps in support that they're experiencing that may have resulted in them uh facing eviction.

Um and then uh one thing that is very neat that I'm very thankful for a lot of community uh agencies for is I've been able to bring in some programs in-house, so I'm not just giving out numbers and addresses and telling clients to figure it out.

Um we got a partnership with HTC.

Uh they provide a lot of really great clothing, toys, books uh for our clients' children, and um they're not client serving, so I go pick it up, I drop it off to them.

Um, somebody's going through eviction court, there's probably other things going on in their lives.

So um anything I can do to shake things off of their plate, um, especially while we're kind of in crisis mode, possibly.

Um, and then another uh place I'd like to give a shout out to is LA Cake Company.

Um they have been donating birthday cakes to all of my clients' children.

Um and I got the idea because we were noticing we would kind of get on track with a client, and then sometimes uh child's birthday would kind of throw a wrench in that.

So I was like, well, what can we do to help support that?

And um beyond the things that I do, I also make sure that um I educate clients on resources that are available and make sure that they know that there's options out there to find the help that they need.

And um beyond that, I do uh a variety of things, uh, whatever it takes to help them get stabilized.

Um I've communicated with future potential landlords to explain why maybe they have an eviction filing, but we were able to get that dismissed, explain on working with them to make sure they're able to achieve their goals, um, get them plugged into local resources.

Um sometimes they need help uh applying for public benefits, and we have a public benefit department with enabled that I can kind of collaborate with them and make sure they're uh signed up for everything that they need.

I've driven uh clients' rental payments in to make sure that they get there on time if they're having trouble with transportation.

So um, yeah, whatever it can, whatever I can do to help ensure that they have a chance of getting past this obstacle.

I'm happy to do it.

And it's been a great pleasure to be able to serve the community I grew up in.

Yeah.

Um Dustin is uh I think a really key resource in our program.

Um a lot of times what we see with families is they just need a little bit of support, and having another person that they know is on their side and and trying to help is honestly as important as the actual help they're getting, right?

Um, and so you know, we've considered other models, we've talked to so many people about how people are doing this, and um every time we come back around to it, I just think that the work that Dustin is doing is so important.

I think like the birthday cake example is so huge.

And every time we talk about it, I just like I can't, it's hard for me.

I have a five-year-old.

We all know like you want to give your kid a birthday party, right?

And you would do whatever you need to do to make sure that kid had a good birthday, if that means going without.

And so I just think these like personal connections and that Dustin saw that as a barrier and was able to create that resource.

Like that doesn't happen when you're doing quick touch.

That doesn't happen when you only see a client for 30 minutes.

Um so I really wanted to highlight this part of the program because I think people might see it as superfluous, but I think it's part of why it's been successful.

Okay, so let's talk about some of our results.

Um, so like I said, we served, and this is through, let me clarify this is through February of this year.

We are still continuing to serve clients.

So this evaluation is of the first 125 households.

Um but we are over 150 now, I believe.

Yeah.

Uh so we're gonna continue doing this.

We have Learner has committed to funding this project through the end of December because we don't want there to be a stop in services because what we're seeing is people are now recognizing that they have options.

Um, you know, a lot of times people would get an eviction filing, and that was it, they wouldn't show up to court.

Um, they just they gotta find somewhere else to live, right?

So they're now on survival mode.

Uh, but now we're creating a an environment that people understand there might be helping your corner, and we don't want to lose that momentum.

Okay, so of the 125 households, that's actually 493 individuals supported, and three and four of them are children.

Um, so I won't go through every um stat, and you guys have the um executive summary draft in front of you.

You'll have a full full report in a couple weeks from Stouts.

It's they told me it's like 50 pages or something.

So you you'll have a lot to read um in a couple weeks, but we wanted to at least get you the executive summary to start with today.

Uh so 88% of clients uh avoided disruptive displacement.

Um that's that's huge.

Um 80% of the case schools were achieved.

Uh 76% of clients received extensive services.

So that means there's a few, you know, clients that would come in and it was maybe a faster process.

Uh Paul didn't have to spend as long with them.

Maybe there's mediation, they didn't need to go to court, right?

So and then there's some that receive actually these extensive services where they're they're going to court.

Um that helps us see more people than maybe we budgeted for because some of these are like such okay.

So we knew that a return on investment was a really important conversation.

And stout, again, you'll have a full refinery stout really dives into their return on investment um calculations, but they are predicting that for every dollar invested in reading representation, $2.90 in potential fiscal impact and economic benefits.

So that's a I think that's a great um data point in showing that you know it feels like a lot of money, but we are saving money by going upstream.

Um I think what's interesting is at 28%.

So um indicated they would the clients indicated they would experience um they would end up in the shelter or in their car, or right, like they would be unsheltered if it wasn't for this program.

They didn't have somewhere to go.

Um and we all know the costs that come along with sheltering.

Um I think none of the other stats are too surprising.

80% identified as female, 80% identified as non-white.

Uh, we know that eviction is impacting black moms more than anyone else in the city.

Um I've been here before talking about the implications of black moms losing housing and what that does to our infant mortality and um maternal mortality rates.

So we think that this is a really important issue and really important point to know to point out.

Okay, so then lastly, we wanted to end on sort of our full circle continuum of how this is working.

Um as Erica pointed out, learn to earn Dayton is you know edu is an education nonprofit.

So we're we're focused on student outcomes.

Um, and so we have been working with uh Marty's office and Dayton Public Schools.

We're coordinating a launch to launch a student eviction alert system in the fall.

So what that means is we will receive eviction filing data from Marty's office.

Uh learner and Dayton will clean the data, send it over to Dayton Public Schools.

Dayton Public Schools will then match the name on the filing and the address to the guardian and address of student rosters.

They will then get a list of students that a team led by Dr.

Stacey Worley will contact families and say, we've received an alert they may be receiving you maybe experiencing housing instability.

How can we help you?

Um then they are going to be able to directly refer those families back to our access to council.

Because what we heard from the school when we first started talking about this was that they had nowhere to send families.

So if we gave them an alert that said, hey, here's five families that are going to be evicted in three weeks.

They said, Well, okay, then what?

What do we do?

And it's important to know that most of the federal funds through McKinney Vento only allow the schools to provide resources once they become unhoused.

Yes.

So even the McGuine Bento team wasn't have their hands tied in situations like this because they are not yet homeless, which feels silly, but it's federal funding and we understand how that works, right?

So um so we understood that there needed to be a resource for the school to refer families to.

So um so we understood that there needed to be a resource for the school to refer families to this had to be a full continuum.

And that's how we've accessed the council became a big conversation knowing that they needed somewhere to send these families and now that we've seen that access council is so successful we feel really confident in the school district referring families back into the program.

The shame is it had had they known both the author staffs they're really responsive.

I work with both Ventos and McKinney and six McKinney staffs I'm sure they would have removed that in the original legislation had they thought you know but here we are 25 years later.

Right.

Yeah and and it's and if the McKinney Vento people are fantastic at DPS right and but yeah next administration right change.

And just calling out our partners again um everyone I mean this group they meet monthly without fail um at noon on a Monday I make them all meet at lunch lunch.

I don't because we're on Zoom um but they I they're all welcome to eat their lunch on Zoom.

And you know we have it it's just been a very dedicated group of partners and I'm just I couldn't imagine doing this with anyone else.

So that's all we have but we really would love to answer questions, have more conversation anyone here happy to answer questions.

Thank you.

And I apologize for this meetings today.

Thanks to the grace couple of questions I'm sure my colleagues and I have a school's comments I'll turn it over to them and I'll pull more questions to the end.

Commissioner Becker to me.

Yeah um first of all um thank you to all for um the years that have been put into this I know um it's been a conversation for quite some time and finally I think the results that we all knew that this could have is um extreme uh both expired uh specifically Yustin uh I wanted to uh also offer in the intriguing service that you ended up providing um that's where I mean to go lands those types of lines so um that would be again um just some questions on my org um I'm curious what the circumstances were um given maybe what is 12% that did um experienced disruptive display well specifically I mean 88% is high right so I certainly want to um run at the amount and so but then I'll just share these um the full opposite that word displace what kind of E me city yeah do you want to go ahead she's probably the best afternoon I'm Demberly viewing Mabel it's good to see you all in this really lovely day this week weather's just awesome.

So what I would gather because Sal is the one computing this data and they're taking like the questionnaire that Emma talked about that able created in conjunction with Stout and learn to earn and synthesizing the data my sense is that disruptive displacement are situations where people maybe weren't able to move as planned.

So sometimes so there's a number of different like situations we would see sometimes we would try a case get a decision good decision bad decision mostly good decision right um sometimes we work out repayment plans for people to uh have some more time to pay what's owed and that might be through some rental assistance might be from a variety of places or sometimes we work on a move out agreement where the tenant's like yeah I don't I just don't want to stay um lots of conditions issues I want to move um and then sometimes and when they're wanting to move and they think they have plans to move things go sideways right so my sense is the disruptive displacement is people that weren't able to like move as planned and the court had to come out and forcibly remove them.

Uh writ of restitution essentially is the document that enforces the eviction and then the city meeting comes out and makes people leave and changes the lock.

So I think the 12% are I I would I would gather is people that had to were forced to move because either they weren't able to do the payments or they weren't weren't able to move in time, um, or if they got an unfavorable decision.

I appreciate that uh release explanation.

I mean that's just that the continuum type of problems included is all hands on death time design, the partnership of dating public schools I heard about, but uh I I find that extremely um tactical, right?

And I think it's definitely gonna make a difference.

So I'm I'm very excited to support this team forward.

And if I might just say with you know, people have moved we've got agreements repayment plans, all hands are on deck.

So like Dustin is following up with them, seeing what he can do to support either that move or that payment plan.

Paul is amazing as well.

So you're still gonna have situations where people aren't able to do what they'd hoped would happen.

But I think the reason the number of the 88% is so high is because you have a team of people sort of supporting the tenants and making sure they have you know all that we can try to provide to help them to be successful.

Thank you, come in here commission here.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation and the work on this uh foundation lane that track this for us.

I'm curious if you've gotten a glimpse at the 25 data.

Look at the 24 data and that big spike, and I'm curious is this spike or are we seeing a new trend in terms of evictions?

Uh I would I mean we have the new data.

I don't have it on me right now.

What I could tell you is our numbers in the civil division are increasing, both for wage garnishment, eviction, pretty much everything across the board and civil is increasing.

So there is an economic issue that is happening in this country that I think everybody is well aware of with affordability.

Um with that comes more evictions.

Uh here in Montgomery County, we have a lot of different municipal courts.

We are the largest municipal court, so we get the vast majority of the filings for these types of cases.

Uh, we were recently at a conference of all the statewide clerks, and this is happening across the state with evictions, wage gardenishment, and other type of actions.

Everybody's civil cases are increasing.

Um I don't have the exact numbers right now, but I will tell you that they're pretty similar to 2024 here.

Uh 25 would have been a little bit higher.

26 is tracking to be higher too.

Uh some of that is returning back to pre-pandemic numbers, but it also is an increase.

That's kind of afraid to answer the question code and let know the answer.

That was my way chargments are what's up by far at the most.

And what's the current funding for the pilot?

Um so far, learn to earn Dayton has received a little over half a million dollars in philanthropic funds to fund this.

Um that's still paying.

That's gonna basically get us through the end of this year.

And that's including the 150,000 evaluation that can just so really the um service provision is less than that, more like 350,000.

We know large from our funders or our national funder who funded invested in the investable like race.

So Bloomer and partners um really kick started this with uh um half a million dollars in a shared, but we are continuing to fundraise with philanthropic organizations.

And so that's what Emma have Emma alluded to that will take us through the end of December.

Yeah, we've we've gotten really good response from philanthropic organizations that are really interested in funding this work.

And from our conversations across the country, it seems like there is a model of like braided funding basically between public and private that exists.

Um, we have the funders all you know, they want to fund the legal services usually, and so we've been able to get like unrestricted funds from others to do the uh rental assistance through Omega.

So large is your waiting list.

I can imagine that there's quite a bit of demand as people learn about the work you're doing.

I think you have to use it more time.

The the waiting list.

How big is your waiting list?

I assume is yeah, that we'll talk about it.

There's some, I mean, we have a we have filters in place, like so they do have to have a child or a pregnant person in the home.

So that um immediately makes the population smaller.

I will say that if we had unlimited funding, we would be funding this program for seniors.

Um that's the not that's the next biggest group we see five far who need help, and we just unfortunately funding funding doesn't allow us um to do that.

Uh and then they still have to fall within ABL legal aids income requirements.

Um yeah, Deb, you can talk about how you guys kind of parse through.

Yeah, so thanks for your question.

So we don't have a waiting list.

Um we uh so one of the challenges with the pilot is making sure people know about it, right?

Reaching folks.

So the clerk of courts has been great about putting flyers in uh court papers so people know about the pilot.

We've been sending letters for a year um to people that have eviction filings, giving them information, telling them how to reach us.

Some have called us and wondered if it was a scam, right?

Uh, which rightfully so, right?

So many of these communities were reaching out to uh a lot of people have gone into these communities and just taken advantage of people left and right.

So we understand that.

So we typically do not have a waiting list.

One of the challenges we do have though is people reaching out to us at like the 11th hour.

Um, and we have made some adjustments, uh, going to court and meeting people at the courthouse.

Typically, we like to get cases a few days in advance, you know, it's just really good practice.

Um, but you know, we do our best to try to manage that and help people, but we typically do not have uh a waiting list.

I was trying to get a sense of if we were gonna scale what would be the scale that we'd need to get to.

Yeah, so um I would say that our mitigating factor is we have one full-time attorney.

And so we tend to do around 12 on average 12 cases a month, which is basically as many as you want a single attorney taking on without worrying about severe burnout.

Um so there's been in the very beginning, right?

It was a little slow on the uptake for people to understand that it's a program that gets offered.

I mean you have to imagine this is a very hard power dynamic that's happening um when evictions are filed.

And so to understand that someone just wants to help you for free, like that they don't get that that often.

And so this is why we really want the program to keep going to really build the the yeah, exactly.

Um I don't know if you guys have ever been to eviction court, but most of the time evictions are very, very quick in the state of Ohio, they happen quickly.

Uh they file it and then it is put on a docket.

The docket moves very fast.

Uh the majority of evictions are usually gonna be for a failure to pay rent.

Uh, if you fail to pay rent in the state of Ohio by a day, they have a legal right to go do that if they don't accept it and file that eviction.

Uh so it is a fast process.

Um, one of the things that I have noticed is the day of court, most people do not show up to court.

Uh it is typically the landlord's attorney or the attorneys that are handling the landlord's case, which they're required to uh pay that deposit to show up to court and they get default judgment, which means they win by default because nobody's respond.

Um that process is very fast.

That's one of the biggest hurdles that we have is trying to figure out how best to get people to actually know that this exists and that there is resources that you can go to get representation.

Uh if you look at some of the other states and surrounding areas, there's different models to address that.

Uh if you drive down to Hamilton County, they have a partnership with their uh law school that provides some same day representation that is limited in just that one hearing, but they also have a more robust rental uh assistance program that their goal down there is to keep those people in so they throw the money at the rental assistance program to pay off the landlords to make it go away.

So it's in a perfect universe, we would have all of these things and more.

But as we're all very much aware of, this is not a perfect year.

It it costs around 2500 per client.

That's about where we're at on a per uh per household right basis.

So that's um which is the same in basically every jurisdiction I've talked to.

Um so like in Hamilton, they're not putting 2500 towards legal services, but they are spending almost for every client 2500 on rental assistance, and so it's really just where's the money coming from, not exactly a cheaper model.

Um Cincinnati put it during COVID put over a million dollars into a rental assistance fund and then realized they hadn't they were not able to actually spend their rental assistance.

And so they made the access to council this program in order to spend that rental assets.

Um and so it's just a different approach to the the problem.

Um, you know, it's again I we've talked to a lot of people in Atlanta, they have lawyers and um social workers embedded in schools.

I mean, you you name it this there's models all over the country that exist.

Um so it's really just figuring out what works best for us, and because we've sort of tested this now, um, and we know it's working and we know it's not more expensive than the models that are happening across the country.

We we see we want to keep this model while exploring what a same day service might look like with Marty's office at some point because we think it'd be a really good experience for UD students to um be in the court and talking to clients and all those things.

Um, and we might be able to cash some of those that didn't know about us beforehand um and and get some of those same day, but we really think it's in conjunction the model.

So we'd love to expand it again.

All the fun all comes down to funding at some point, how much we can do.

And I'm curious, will the analysis include thinking there's a difference between stopping something in the acute moment and then many people who are facing eviction are really in a chronic, you know, place of poverty.

Do we have some of that longevity that if we can stop an addiction here, it gets them to a place that they can get sustained.

I don't know if the work that Mr.

Hughes is doing helps to get them more financially stable.

So past studies, uh, I know that they've considered the amount of money that is saved from uh homelessness shelters and other unhouse shelters, and that's factored into the money that is saved for the community.

Specifically answering your question, I don't know.

So one of the things we were really intentional about in the beginning was including Omega CDC as a partner.

Um we started with this pilot and just the 05 and 06 zip cooks, uh, but recognized we could expand it to the whole city and still um handle sort of the the intake.

Uh but one of the reasons we included Omega is because we really saw it as a wraparound service.

And so Dustin will refer uh clients to Omega's family coaching program and their other programs to try and get them into that, like how do we keep this from happening again?

And we have a few examples of successful um families who are going through the family coaching, whose kids are now enrolled in programming at Omega, who so you know again, these people most of the time these clients are in some kind of crisis.

And so it's really hard to think about three months, six months down the road.

Uh, but I think you know, Dustin does his best to try and map out like, well, what is next month's rent look like?

Okay, well, what are we doing um at three months from now?

And and really talking them through that um to try and keep it from happening.

And I think um, Mayor, you were there when we talked about our results uh a few months ago.

And I would if I remember correctly, we have a really small, I think it's eight percent return return rate, which means most people are not get they're not getting evicted over and over again.

Um so so something, you know, again, a lot of times what we see is that clients need $400, right?

It's not like an an incredible amount of money that they don't have that month.

It's just they had a car repair or they lost hours at work, and they are just that on the edge that that's what did it.

And so a lot of times we're just coming in and we're saying, okay, let's get you $500 of rentals, let's give you one month of rental assistance to get you back on track.

And most of the time that can get them back on track.

Commissioner, I apologize on the one she's asking.

Okay.

So can we come back to you?

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Yeah, no, I gave it back to the buddy.

I do have to run the family thing.

So first of all, I want to say thank you.

This is this is work that we value greatly.

We see it all the time.

We see the terrible effects.

Talk about the effect on eternal health and uh terrible outcomes of people get evicted, the people don't have a city place to live.

We see it in civil society effects.

We see people uh moving and not getting connected with their neighbors.

Uh not maybe people join the neighborhood group.

Not the kids don't get a play with the people that go through school and grow up together.

We see the the years along the facts of that.

So what you're doing is awesome.

We really appreciate it.

It's groundbreaking.

Um we're always glad to leave in places that we can't always in this uh very proud of you because it's great at work.

Um and adults when we're talking about these things, I want to point out that it does not have to be this way.

If we had decent universal health care in this country, if we if we had people paid a decent living wage, then 60, 70% of problems away.

And am I wrong?

Ish.

Uh so it's uh if we had an UBI, we commission I was talking about universal basic income.

Uh if we had something like it fixes so much of the problems.

This this is another problem that we see every day.

So the fact that you all are working so hard and we're paying attention to it, it's important.

Um, but maybe we have a little bit of federal government, better state government, people paying a little more attention to be a little more humane about how they govern the things they can do a little easier on us here.

So I always I always want to make sure that the that is mentioned that we're bringing the big picture.

Um so I just want to say that too, like and it's no surprise here, everybody probably does the holistic approach.

It's a lot like we do with our paramedic services, but paramedic and social works going out.

Um it works and it costs a little bit more up front and it saves a lot of money and lives as well.

So I'm really gonna utilize approach.

Um, just like everybody, like commissioners' questions go.

I'm looking forward to seeing how we scale this up.

That looks like forward reading those 50 pages.

Uh that's all thank you, Mary.

Thank you for letting me jump in.

I'm gonna strike it.

I go to family things.

I didn't left.

Thank you.

Sure.

Yeah, just quickly uh I was curious if there's 26 that have this.

Are there ways that they are um creating a finance funding source, you know, surcharges on other services or yeah, so I think it's a variety.

So I'm I'm a farm girl, so and we have chickens and lots of eggs.

So we say you don't put all your eggs in one basket.

Um so some is filing fees.

Uh so when a landlord files an eviction case, there's a uh a filing fee add-on that helps pay for these costs.

Some are like united way, some are philanthropic.

Uh some are state funded.

Um trying to think what else we have seen.

I feel like those are probably the the main engines of it's usually general funds.

Usually it's typically general funds, it's from what I've seen.

I mean, there is some aspects.

I think Cleveland's was all United Way funded.

Uh Akrons came from I want to say ARPA money.

Um kind of all depends on where they can have money to use and utilize for these programs.

It's usually a creative solution.

It's got to be a creative solution.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think in Toledo, they Cleveland, they all the legal aid also raises money for it.

So you know they they're raising money, the city's paying some the count, like it's this patchwork of different funding sources that becomes a better butt.

Yeah.

I mean, and some of the jurisdiction, I think San Francisco and stuff like that, they have some of these more progressive things that they're able to raise more money.

Uh, which but imagine here in the state of Ohio becomes a little bit more difficult.

And last question, the eviction task force.

I assume that's sunset, but I was curious if that's accurate and given the spike that we're seeing if it's not maybe advisable to recreate the eviction task force.

Uh I used to sit on that vision tax force.

I think all of us I think we were all on it at some point on the sunset though.

Sunset.

It should probably come back at some point.

Well, so Marty also leads the lead a different sub the rental housing subcommittee from out of the city's uh housing policy committee.

Housing worker group.

Um and so that also had gone away a little bit in the last year and a half, yeah and a half.

I sat on it.

I don't believe we had meetings in the last two years.

I started having meetings two months ago.

Steve Gondel asked me to chair it in December.

Uh I want to say December, it might have been January.

And I agreed to do that.

We've started to meet about bi weekly now.

Uh we're looking for people to be on it.

There was a list that was provided to me from the previous people who were on this subcommittee, and we've started to build up that to really discuss a lot of these issues and push forward other things.

In fact, some of the great things that were on our old to-do list, we had already done.

Like ceiling of eviction records.

So we are actively working with that group to move the proposal of funding and what this will could look like embedded in the city through that subcommittee and into the house and policy committee.

Um, so that's sort of our next steps with this.

Thank you, Commissioner Shell.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you all for for this great work.

Uh, you know, I in the beginning when we put this thing together, I wasn't sure how this was going to work out or if it was gonna work out.

And it sounds like it's really remarkable uh the way that it's it's uh working.

I appreciate the data.

I appreciate especially the conversation and the the information about the return on the investment.

I think that's the way to make this thing sustainable.

And that leads me to my my questions.

A lot of my colleagues have covered this already, but I'm most interested in hearing your thoughts on how to scale this up.

What's that gonna look like?

Um answered a lot of the questions, and I really do appreciate the fact that this is kind of like a haspods of funders, an opportunity to fund it.

Another thing, so Cincinnati, they spent a million dollars on this, much larger community.

More than a million.

So Cincinnati, just so we're clear, that was for the entire Hamilton County.

So they have a unified court system down there.

We have seven different broken up municipal courts.

Okay.

So they're this goes way back into DOJ language, but there was this consent decree about redlining and other things with their municipal courts that made them go under one-in-court system.

Uh, and their county court is who handles all their evictions for Hamilton County.

So the city of Cincinnati put money in.

And uh the Hamilton County Clerk of Court is who's currently doing that self-help center partnership with UC.

And there's they also have philanthropy finding it.

Yeah, oh yeah, they also have a braided system.

So theirs is well over well over a million.

Um total.

I I probably copy the number.

I think I talked to her a few months ago, but a million is just what they initially put into rental assistance.

They've actually put in another two million, yeah.

I mean, a huge amount of money, but that's how they operate.

Like they when someone is comes into court, they have pay to stay, just like we do.

And so they will just they will pay their back rent and get a continuing.

I I'm in the lawyer, I always say they're on this continuous.

I'm like, one of these days, I'll um it's not a course.

Yeah, so then they get a continuance, and then they're able to their United Way is very quick at paying for it.

Um, and the landlords trust the United Way to pay them, and so then they sort of get the time to work it out.

Um we looked at that model.

Uh we don't have a uh organization that is really fast and good at paying rental rent to um the landlords.

We Omega's done a great job.

This was a service they did not offer before.

We just asked them to do it and they stepped up and it's been so fantastic of them.

And they they have relationship with landlords now.

So, you know, we are so so appreciative to the work they did, they've been doing for us.

Um, we've over the last since November 2024 have used less than 25,000 in rental assistance.

Does our United Way have that same service?

I mean, I didn't sound like it's a they're doing something.

We're we're gonna talk to them.

They just started a program, but no, they do not have rental assistance funds.

No, almost no one in so since COVID, rental assistance has just been going away more and more.

Now almost nothing exists.

Um Justin knows all about it.

He gets, he finds if there's rental assistance, he helps clients get it before and then uses our pot as a last sort of resort.

Can I speak to the scaling up?

Because I feel like nobody really answered that.

Um I'm Chris De Ortiz, I'm the managing attorney.

Put it down.

I'm the managing attorney for the housing community academic development at Able.

Uh so I come from New York, people get annoyed that I say that, but uh, we started with 16 attorneys, scaled up to about 62 attorneys in Kings County where I work, that's the highest courthouse for evictions in the entire US, actually in the entire world.

Um, and so to capacity, we didn't have a waiting list, and that goes to the question that was stated uh was asked earlier.

The eviction process is so fast here that ethically, as attorneys, we could never do a wait list because you would have somebody on the wait list and you can they would have to be up checked off the wait list within three days or five days, or we would miss their appearance.

And then in essence, we would commit malpractice.

So we can't do uh wait list in regards to scaling up.

We actually had a conversation with Stout where progressively we would increase the number of staff representing folks and the number of clients that we represented.

And so I believe Stout has that number to be able to provide the different uh staff.

So if it's attorney, social workers, um, more paralegals.

So of course that would incrementally increase the program, but with that, it would increase the number of cases that we could do and the number of families that we can do.

In regards to a wait list, our alternative was providing brief advice.

And so we provide all of the defenses that the person potentially would have.

We would do intake at the courthouse, evaluate every case that came in.

If the person was over income and we couldn't represent them, or um, some other reason that we're conflicted out, we would provide the advice at that moment.

They would be able to go downstairs and adjourn the case and deal with it.

Also, in order to deal with a scale up, we would have to do a partnership with the court where a continuance would be automatically granted at the date of filing.

So in New York, what we did was 45 days.

It is increasing now because you have adjourned dates.

Um, it just doesn't have we don't have like they didn't have capacity, the number of attorneys needed for the number of eviction cases.

So that has to be a partnership that we think about and scaling up.

There has to be a two-week, three-week continuance in order to provide counsel, whether it's a brief advice or full representation.

Yeah, thank you for that.

That's uh that was very helpful.

I'm gonna turn it over to the mayor because I know she's got some comments before it's like five minutes.

But I am interested, I know I'm gonna hear this question asked.

Uh is this would it be better to be housed with the county?

It feels to me like it's a human services issue.

Well, I think if you did it on a levy basis, it would make sense to go in there.

Uh but that would be a levy additional request.

Right.

That's just my two cents on it.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I really appreciate my colleagues' questions.

I am so excited.

This is not coming.

I appreciate the work that you've all had.

But thus far, great work for kudos to all of them for loan numbers leaves, which is necessary in New York.

And I know this is something that I think that really talked about.

We've had conversations about it to see is at this point again, is this remarkable is commendable.

Oh, I think I've got a few minutes.

Thank you, is um smells for now 8% and chunks of those individuals that only percentage of those individuals who are actually coming back for the existence of the support of access to counsel.

Um want to make this point.

So you mentioned PS and they will work with an alert system through the initiative, right?

Yeah, so that's the way that works is they get learner gets my data, they send that, they clean it up and send it to DPS.

Okay.

Alerts on DPS can also provide some services.

Now, only question, and I don't know if you all have already visited this already, and I'm sure the lawyers in a room have already spoken to this, but oftentimes there's a level of privacy indignity that goes along with receiving a call to say, hey, here you are, and they see uh eviction.

So I would just ask that there's a level of of empathy and that that situation is delicately handled.

Perhaps it is the first of the year where all of the students are required to sign a waiver form or a notice form that if in fact you choose to participate in this program, check the box, mom, dad, guardian, sign here so that we can say that hey, we've done everything that we needed to do.

This is the reason why you're receiving this call, because again, there's that level of privacy that we want to make sure that we're protecting that people won't feel violated or that that information is being too intrusive, if you will.

Thank you, that's no.

Yeah, so we definitely thought about that.

Student roster data is for um protected, and that's why we are not receiving student data at all.

It's all being done in within the school.

Um admission data is probably so uh and Dr.

Warley with Brandy Um Black Color Program.

His team already does case work with students, and um, due to shifting priorities, the state um with what you know school districts can do.

Um, this felt that Dr.

Lawrence felt this was a really good way to keep Dr.

Orley and his team still doing those work and with individual students and doing those kind of casework with them in a different sort of way.

So they are already trained, they already know how to deal with sort of sensitive topics with students.

We feel really good about the team at DPS.

Okay.

Last question.

I have a number of them, but you all covered a great deal of them actually, two continents.

So the lawyer and LSW model that is embedded in the school system with in Atlanta.

So what are you all looking at?

Because I know that you mentioned Cincinnati, you mentioned uh Atlanta, you mentioned some other various different places, New York.

So what is the the key model and as well as right with the the law school uh partnership with uh the city of Cincinnati and UC, what model are you all looking at, and what in particular would would it be like a hodgepodge of LT uh Alanta, Cincinnati, New York, coupled with a little dates in flare.

Like what are you all looking at overall?

And if that's something that you all are still vetting, so it's understandable.

In 2021, we started doing a bunch of sprints.

Yes, throughout all these different sprints, there were things lessons learned from everybody is presented, and then each one kind of did what we could do.

This was basically this part of it is what we come up with computer for date.

I think it's like no one's program is not working.

That's the other kind of sort of crazy thing about this is that offering any amount of help in the situation is very successful.

Um, and so we feel strongly about our model, but we also think that if we can, we would love to offer same-day service in addition because we just know people are slipping through the crafts.

Um, and so you know, funding-wise, we can only do what we can do right now, but we would really love to explore what a same day model would do to add on so that we we don't miss so many people.

But um my one thing is you know, progress instead of perfection is always something important.

Um, this is definitely significant for uh is it a fantastic perfect model?

I don't think any piece of legislation or model would ever be perfect.

Um, but this is a gigantic step forward for our residents and really people who are at the most needed in our society to get service.

Great, thank you.

Last comment I would make is more so to uh my colleagues for something for us to think about when we talk about the funding challenges when we finished out we all are not in my talk the country related to that.

There is one of the proposals that I have is for us to look at an affordable housing trust fund.

We have four years that have already been identified for the use of our income tax levy that was passed in March of 24th.

So those four years have already been obligated, right?

We have that partnership with county court, we know that that's going towards the um the home repair network.

But the remaining four is an opportunity for us to revisit to see if there is a piece of that funding that we could potentially designate to uh right to counsel access to counsel, as well as other um areas of of interest, whether it be for our developers, whether it be for uh tenants' rights, whether it be for down payment assistance.

So again, I'm just sharing that as a model for us to look at, know that the four years have already been committed, but the following four years out of that eight year income tax levy commitment is in fact an opportunity that we all should should look into and see if that's something that we want to vet.

So kudos thank you all very much great job um please let me know how I could be a further support.

Thank you