Suffolk law students help Chelsea homeowners

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by Sandra Miller
Beacon Hill Times
Chelsea Record
A family of four, from a woman in her late 50s to her granddaughter, lived in an apartment without heat, hot water, or cooking gas. They did have rats. The house was under foreclosure, so the bank wasn’t too responsive when notified of these conditions. In fact, they were trying to evict the family.

A group of Suffolk law students came to the rescue. Within short order, they helped the family obtain a temporary restraining order ordering the bank, Aurora Loan Services, to rectify these conditions.

“It was a struggle even after getting the court order, but we were able to do that for the tenant in a relatively short period of time,” says Bill Berman, an associate clinical law professor who runs the Housing & Consumer Protection Clinic in Chelsea. “We are still representing her. She was a Section 8 tenant, so the bank shouldn't have even been entitled to bring an eviction against her. We got it dismissed. They moved out on her own accord and are pursuing their claims against them.”

Because of subprime mortgages, property owners no longer able to afford their payments are losing the properties to the bank, creating a domino effect of suffering among tenants, families, and whole communities.

Hundreds of area tenants living in foreclosed properties are being forced out of their homes by the banks buying up the homes. What many don’t know is that they don’t have to move, at least not immediately, say legal advocates.

Thanks to a group of Suffolk University law students, victims of foreclosure are learning about their rights. “Many banks don’t want the liability of maintaining a landlord tenant relationship so they try to get them out as early as possible,” says Sara Louis, a third year law student at Suffolk who has helped in two major foreclosure cases. “We help people fill out paperwork, so they can preserve their rights, but we don’t actually represent all the people who come in. We’re just helping people know what their rights are, which is a big thing. A lot of tenants don’t know what their rights are.”

Suffolk University rents their clinic at 350 Broadway, as run by Prof. Steven Callahan and staffed by office coordinator Ana Vaquerano, who can speak Spanish. The city also employs high school students to give out Suffolk legal clinic cards. “We are very supportive of what the Suffolk legal clinic is doing,” says Chelsea Housing Director Carol Martinez. “We’ve worked with Suffolk’s legal clinic many times over the years. They get the messag out that residents don’t have to pack up and leave.”

Berman says, “I don't think there is one case where we haven't had some such successful outcome for the tenant. Sometimes they get more time, sometimes they get money to help for their move, that they didn't realize they were otherwise entitled to.”

Berman’s clinic this year runs until students graduate in the spring. He launched the clinic last spring, when he began noticing an uptick in foreclosures last fall. “We decided to organize a group of Suffolk students to canvass, trying to reach tenants in foreclosed properties to inform them of their rights before they were scared out of their home,” he said. “We began in earnest in the fall. We now a have a significant group of students canvassing in Chelsea and the city of Boston – Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, Dorchester and South Boston.”

The students get leads from a Harvard student clinic’s website, from Banker and Tradesman, and by handing out fliers. The students get assigned properties that are in their neighborhood to canvass. Suffolk also houses a free legal clinic each Friday in Chelsea, an eight-student office targeting housing and consumer protection, with another 40 students doing canvassing.

While not directly associated with the city, Suffolk is working with Chelsea officials, with the hopes of gaining canvassing expertise and some contacts that will help ease the students’ outreach. “People from the local community who could go out with the students and work with them in meeting the tenants,” says Berman. “It would be a way to make the tenants more comfortable when someone is banging on the door and provide assistance.”

Although some students speak Spanish, language is a barrier; so is general mistrust. “There is some hesitance in the beginning, but if they have a member of the community with them and able to explain themselves a little bit, reassure that they are doing something other than trying to help them with free services, they have had some success.”

The Suffolk clinic is staffed by an office coordinator, Ana Vaquerano, who can speak Spanish. “Our clinic is a real, very significant resource in the city of Chelsea. Ana is an extremely knowledgeable person who is extremely involved in the community. She’s a great resource.”

Students received 303 certification in order to help out people who otherwise couldn’t afford a lawyer. Suffolk’s clinic is open Fridays in Chelsea, where they help people with paperwork.

The students get cases from walk-ins to their Chelsea clinic, as well as by sending letters to those receiving eviction notices. “We get a list from Chelsea district court and send letters to tell them about our clinic, about their rights, and how we can help them with filling out paperwork, can come every Friday morning at Chelsea,” says Louis.

“The housing clinic appealed to me, especially with what’s going on with the foreclosures and evictions,” said Louis, who hails from Westchester, Pa.; her father is an attorney, too. Louis also works with cases dealing with housing, battered women, and family and juvenile justice.

She recalls one 73-year old woman who had lived in her Chelsea apartment for 33 years, and was facing eviction. The landlord had lost the three-family, which was bought by a bank in a foreclosure sale. In the end the students helped negotiate a settlement last month. “We ended up getting an agreement for more time, and got her some money in order for her to move. She has to move out Feb. 1.”

The key was settling before having to present the court case, says Louis.

Louis also worked with an East Boston resident, where the mother had paid a deposit on a place that later was discovered to have lead paint. She wanted her money back, but the landlord refused. She was awarded money, but all she has is a writ of attachment; she’s having trouble collecting. Louis worked with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination to give the woman additional money “for what she had to go through,” said Louis.

Suffolk’s worked directly with about a couple dozen tenants so far, says Berman. “The efforts we have with canvassing is to reach people before they are in court, and expand with more people,” says Berman.

With practice comes knowledge. “We are becoming more and more familiar with these types of cases and the types of issues that come up. Unfortunately we are seeing more and more of them. I think the reality is the trend is continuing to increase. We are planning to be there and to offer our assistance.”

Says Berman, “There are challenges with these kinds of cases. Sometimes the decisionmakers are located out of state and far away and it's difficult to get their attention, even if the lawyers are local. It's a challenge sometime to get a large entity focused on the needs of individuals ... sometimes they don't see themselves as responsible.”

Berman doesn’t blame the banks so much. “I think the way the banks didn't realize that they would be in this position, that they weren't planning to be major landlords because of this kind of crisis. When they take ownership of a property, they need to focus their attention.”

“We’re constantly looking for ways to improve what we're doing and to collaborate with others,” say Berman. The students are working with Harvard’s legal aid bureau, Greater Boston Legal Services, Chelsea Human Services, and City Life. “It’s a unique program,” says Berman. “Harvard is doing a similar program, but Suffolk is organizing students to do this pro bono in canvassing around the city.”


City Life’s "No one leaves campaign" blockaded the evictions of Jamaica Plain homeowners in foreclosure. “There are definitely other people doing the lawyer for the day program,” says Louis. “This is just another resource for people.”

“I just think it’s so beneficial to see the good you do and how grateful people are for the time you’re taking to help them,” says Louis. “It’s just opened my eyes to the conditions people have to live in. It’s just an eye opening experience.”


Sidebar: The Chelsea Housing Market

Unlike in many areas of the state, where investors bought properties, rented them out, and tried to flip them for more money, in Chelsea much of the housing stock is owner-occupied, with many units rented to fellow family members. So when people talk about the foreclosure crisis, it’s not just a few people who have to leave because they obtained mortgages they couldn’t afford. These are multi-family homes that has renters that need to move on. There are renters who never missed a payment but who are being thrown out by impatient banks. It’s not just a “tsk-tsk” moment among the better off. This is about an entire community imploding.

“We have to figure out how to bring new families in or try to keep the ones who live here,” says Chelsea Housing Director Carol Martinez. “This has a very destabilizing effect on Chelsea families. It affects how kids do in school, it affects everything.”

To maintain a vital Chelsea, it’s all about keeping families here.

“I’ve walked through a lot of two- families that were sad … it was like walking through a ghost town. The people who lived in them took care of them, they were their homes. They left toys behind, swing sets in the back yard. It’s sad.”

Martinez welcomes Suffolk’s help, which complements her own efforts to stabilize an entire community.

“A significant amount of residents are at risk of being foreclosed upon. Losing owners and tenants, and have the property go through the cycle is not healthy for our neighborhoods. We’d like to keep tenants and property owners in the property as much as we can.”

Her office has been watching the slow rise of foreclosures, and so she’s been assembling some resources.

The City of Chelsea is slowly rolling out a Distressed Housing Initiative, which has a goal to keep tenants in the building they’re in. The Chelsea Restoration Corporation, funded through the city of Chelsea, has run a foreclosure prevention counseling program, at 154 Pearl St. “If you have trouble paying your mortgage, you call them,” says Martinez.

And Chelsea Neighborhood Developers develops affordable and mixed-income housing, one of more than 200 member organizations nationwide that make up NeighborWorks America. “They have been doing a lot of work in partnerships to keep track of the properties and map them out, figure out who lived in there, who the foreclosure entities are,” says Martinez.

“The Chelsea neighborhood developers are looking to go after and buy some of the more distressed properties and try to get them before the owners and tenants have moved out,” says Martinez. “It’s actually been pretty successful. I think they bought three buildings. A lot of them they can’t get to if they are foreclosed upon. I think they’ve been able to get one that is still occupied. They’re trying but it’s a very labor intensive program to deal with.”

Stepping in and helping people from losing their homes is tough – first, housing advocates have to find the tenants and landlords who are in trouble, before the banks finish foreclosing upon the property. Because of language barriers, cultural differences, depression and mistrust, many victims are reluctant to turn to others for help.

Also, the layers of bureaucracy involved with banks, loans and real estate professionals is extensive. “We’re really, really, really only now beginning to have enough resources and staffing to really start making a difference,” says Martinez. “Investors are finally figuring out it’s better to work out a deal with the owners, and that they’ll make more money, than to foreclose.”

“It’s a really big mess,” says Martinez. “But the mess we have in Massachusetts is nothing compared to other states. Florida is just a disaster.” There, whole gated communities are closed. Developers there overbuilt. “We’re lucky we didn’t have enough land to do that,” says Martinez.

The bulk of the subprime loans went to homeowners in the Midwest, something our state avoided largely due to our strong economy, she notes. In 1995, a three-family went for $300,000; today you can buy one for $150,000, more if it’s in great condition. “These are nice values compared to the depressed Midwest,” she says. “I think it’s still solid here. It’s not catastrophic.”

“Sometimes we don’t get the building until it’s too late. It’s so traumatic, that it’s hard to get them in. They’re in shock,” says Martinez. “I think the word is getting out and people are starting to come in more to foreclosure prevention initiative and to the Suffolk clinic.”

To help ease the crisis, money is starting to come in from state and federal government. Governor Deval Patrick recently visited Chelsea to announce a $20 million loan fund, available to community organizations to purchase foreclosed-upon properties.

And in more good news to help stem the loss of Chelsea families, the Patrick Administration’s Department of Housing and Community Development submitted its plan to distribute $43.4 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to help Massachusetts communities stabilize neighborhoods hit hard by foreclosures.

While the bulk of the funds will go toward Boston, Brockton, Springfield and Worcester; Fitchburg, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, New Bedford, Framingham, Barnstable, Plymouth and Marlboro can also apply for $6.8 million direct assistance for eligible projects. Chelsea, along with Revere, Everett, Methuen, Weymouth, Chicopee, Leominster, Quincy, Milford, Randolph, Attleboro, Yarmouth, Wareham, Salem, Billerica, Fall River, Saugus, Dracut, Somerville, Peabody, Taunton, Holyoke, Stoughton, Falmouth and Marshfield will also be eligible for community assistance.

Under HUD’s timeline, it expects to notify the state of whether the plan is acceptable by January 15, 2009; funds would then be available in February.