Page 19 - Impact: Collected Essays on Expanding Access to Justice

me personally “I’m moving out because of harassment .” Not because my rent is $1400 for one bedroom, or my rent is $2400 for a three bedroom, it’s not because of that . I can afford it . It’s just, can’t take harassment . . . .
People won’t be stressed out economically, psychologically, okay, if they have the right to counsel . They won’t miss a day of work, like they do . The right to counsel, you know, will give you the right to be represented correctly and cannot be taken away . A right is a right, okay? . . . It would take away the fear, the ignorance, and the feeling of despair and failure that people have when they go to housing court . Right to counsel would give me peace of mind to live with dignity and even the unfair playing field that landlords play with in Housing Court .
The sanctity of a home where you can have, you know, your sanctity when you come home, unwind and think about how attacking tomorrow’s, you know, problems that are going to confront you and then you could pursue, okay, happiness, and that’s what we’re about, we want to be happy .27
and:
An important component of one’s sense of well-being is the interest in agency or autonomy, particularly in situations that are difficult or stressful or that are fraught with risk .29 When people feel they have the ability to make decisions and assert their will, as they would with a right to be represented by counsel when their homes are in jeopardy, they have a greater feeling of agency and autonomy:
I was in housing court at one point back in 2013, two years after my mother had passed away where she was living in NYCHA30 and I was her primary care provider, and we was going to court because my name wasn’t on the lease . And after going back and forth with the other people that was living in the apartment, I had decided to just leave the apartment and I think it was more stressful with the people than with the Housing Court, but at that time, though, I did not have an attorney to represent me . I did know of succession rights and stuff like that, little things you know, that I tried to educate myself to fight my own battle . However, with NYCHA we don’t have succession rights, I found that out, because the NYCHA has their own set of rules . . . . But I decided just to leave the apartment and I’ve just been floating around and trying to get my head above the water . . . . It would have made a difference if I’d had an attorney . It would have helped me better educate myself and know my rights to how to keep the apartment and get rid of the other people that was in the apartment, as well... 31
27 Joseph Cepeda, CASA focus group, Nov. 17, 2015.
28 Althea Matthews, CASA focus group, Nov. 17, 2015.
29 Fallon, supra note 24, at 353–54.
30 The New York City housing Authority.
31 Althea Matthews, CASA focus group, Nov. 17, 2015.
I believe that if you have a basic need, if you don’t provide food, shelter, and clothing for your children they will take your children away or your child away . So the right to counsel is built on having those principles to protect not only your children but yourself, as well . And so I believe that with the right to counsel it would be more of a battlefield with knowledge against knowledge . Not one that is crippled by not knowing . This way it would keep more people from being tossed out to the street .28
Specific Areas for Reform: Housing
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