After much discussion of the process and witnessing it first hand,
our class has identified certain “pinch points” within the housing court
system. These pinch points are moments during summary process at which at least
one user group is inconvenienced. The pinch points, therefore, are the places
that we can intervene.
The issues begin as soon as the eviction does. The notice to quit—the
paper informing a tenant that their lease has been terminated—is the first step
in the eviction process and is the tenant’s first point of contact with the
legal system. This notice is often not written in plain language and does not
always explain the tenant’s rights in the situation. How much would the
eviction process change if the legal resources (that are already in existence) were
listed on these notices to quit?
At the courthouse, things are not much clearer. Parties’ only
indication of where they are supposed to go upon arrival is on one of three wall
mounted screens that cycle through a list of names and locations for that day’s
hearings. Users must then follow signs to navigate throughout the courthouse. Once
all the necessary parties have managed to find the courtroom where they need to
be, there is another difficult point of contact.
The hearings take place for the duration of the day, which means
almost everyone will spends hours sitting outside the courtroom, waiting for entry.
The waiting area outside the courtroom is one long, thin bench that is not only
uncomfortable, but it provides no privacy between a user and the person they
are engaged in confrontation with. Landlords and tenants might have to sit next
to each other for hours before their hearing.
The Lawyer for a Day program places lawyers who are volunteering
their time for that day outside of the courtroom that these trials will take
place in so that they might provide legal advice to landlords and tenants
alike. This is a wonderful program in theory. However, the execution creates
another uncomfortable moment for users because the table of lawyers for landlords
is directly adjacent to the table of lawyers for tenants. This could make
approaching the lawyers for advice uncomfortable for users whose “opponent” is
sitting in direct sight of the table. Additionally, those seeking the help of
the volunteer lawyers end up clogging the hallway as they stand at the tables
seeking counsel, making circulation through the hallway much more difficult.
These are just a couple of the issues my classmates and I
identified; a more extensive list was generated, but these few issues are the
ones I find more glaring. Promisingly, they are issues that I think fall within
our capacity to change. I do not expect the solutions to require a system
overhaul or an obscene amount of money. Therefore, I am optimistic that through
the cooperation of architecture students and law students we can fix one, if
not all, of these pinch points.
- Katya Stassen