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DATA SCIENCE
Data Science & Evictions
Why don’t all people facing eviction get a lawyer?
It is the science, stupid.
I know this one. I am a lawyer. A tenant lawyer. I represented hundreds, probably thousands of people with housing problems. Most of them are facing eviction. Most of them can’t afford a lawyer. That is why they wound up calling one of the many places I worked providing pro bono legal representation to low to moderate income persons.
Evictions are the path to homelessness. Homelessness is disaster. We all know it. Sometimes it takes years to recover from it even after the person is housed again.
So, why do we let it happen. It is illogical in terms of cost. It is hot potato. Imagine a person can’t pay their rent for a month. They fall behind, can’t catch up, and then the landlord, a parasite of a company, sues for eviction.
The person comes to court, has no money, no legal counsel, and before they know it, they leave the courthouse agreeing to paying all the money they owe in ten days. They accept a judgment in the meantime and a promise that the judgment is stayed for ten days. It is a horrible arrangement. And it is an arrangement that results in an eviction a high percentage of the time.
