Eviction Prevention Collaboration: Lessons from Allegheny County (Part 3)

[00:00:00]director of programs and Outreach here at the housing Alliance uh for today's webinar we're going to be discussing eviction prevention programs that are working to keep people in their homes uh I got to do a little bit of a disclaimer here it should be in no way construed as legal advice we know many people are either working with someone who's facing an eviction or you yourself could be and if you do need legal advice of course please contact your local legal aid agency or County Bar Association to find out what resources are available in your community so now let's get to the good part uh in November last year the housing Alliance released a report along with a series of eviction prevention resources the report explores how eviction filings and filing rates have changed in uh the pre pandemic pandemic and post-pandemic time periods and the communities where these changes occur our goal is to provide local coalitions the data and resources needed to drive efforts to either create or expand existing eviction prevention efforts I am excited to have three people from uh the eviction prevention collaborative in alagan C County here with me today we are joined by Aaron herb with just mediation Pittsburgh Abby Ray lome with rent help Pittsburgh and Adam dvo with Neighborhood Legal Services so why do we need to prevent evictions uh evictions are play a major role in uh driving people into homelessness uh a recent study found that there is a significant positive association between the rate of evictions filed and the rate of sheltered homelessness in fact for every 1 percentage Point increase in the eviction filing rate there is an Associated point2 person increase in in the following year in the rate of sheltered homelessness per 10,000 people uh we also know that um there is a great racial disparity within evictions uh there's been of course much research on this as well um some recent Studies have shown uh USA Today uh did some research that showed that it if you are black woman in the United States your rate of eviction surpasses that of any other demographic and also in Pennsylvania counties areas where there's a higher percentage of Renters of color in a zip code are also experiencing higher rates of eviction filings uh Black and Latino renters facing eviction uh were often subject to repeat filings at the same address uh with an average uh filing rate of approxim at 15% and then last but not least we know that you know once that filing happens it really impacts accessing future housing opportunities and landlords really don't want to rent to folks who have an a record so uh we also know this at the housing Alliance because we did a a large landlord survey last year where we got a pretty impressive response with 600 60 uh respondents and nearly 80% of those uh for-profit landlords uh told us that they would not rent to someone with a record of a past eviction and while the news on eviction filing seems rather Bleak we don't want we do want everyone to be aware that there are solutions that are working and the following programs we are going to discuss each have three core components each of these components can uh most certainly be a standalone service and are already available in many communities but what we are seeing is that when these services are Blended together and delivered at a critical moment we are seeing great success and so those components are direct assistance again to address any rental debt uh the dispute settlement component you know whether whether it be landlord tenant mediation or uh some sort of uh expanded access to legal representation and resource navigation to make sure that we are quickly connecting people to resources that can really uh address the underlying issue that caused the housing instability in the first place so what does success look like in these eviction prevention programs so with pre-file in mediation uh success really looks like there's no eviction filing that is happening uh we see that both tenants and landlords have successfully come to an agreement and that court is avoided alog together in uh a program like lawyer of the day what we see is that cases are withdrawn and uh they are settled and you know we really want to focus on these to possible outcomes because it really does show that some sort of agreement was reached some sort of negotiation happened and that both sides are walking away with what they need they may not get everything that they want but they are satisfied with the agreement that was reached and you know do not want to pursue the court pathway any further so now let's take a look at some of these promising practices at work and that leads us to uh the eviction prevention collaborative that is happening in alany County so again in looking at filing rates uh in alany County specifically 91% of eviction filing cases evolve uh rent and a and so we do know that that is just a major contributing factor to eviction filings and to landlord tenant disputes but we do know that there are programs that can really make impactful um changes to to what's happening with eviction filings so looking first at the uh landlord tenant mediation program that's happening in Alig County over a thousand mediations happened in 2023 uh and almost all of those mediations ended up with uh the parties coming to an agreement and you know the tenants uh received referrals and got either you know resource navigation or legal services uh again to sort of look at what to make sure that these mediations are good and solid and nobody is you know handing away their power or handing away their rights uh also looking uh at for those folks who maybe couldn't get both sides to consent to mediation there was still that critical resource navigation to make sure people are connected to services and we are seeing that landlords are really buying into this intervention with uh you know over 900 referrals coming from housing authorities and you know over 1,400 referrals coming from private landlords themselves and then we want to take a look at also the landlord uh the lawyer of the day program that is happening in alagan County uh you know this program began in the fall of 2023 it expanded to Four Courts within the city of Pittsburgh itself uh you know the collaborating judges arranged their schedules to ensure landlord tenant cases are heard on the same day and uh you know prior to implementation of this program only 9% of cases were withdrawn or settled in these lawyer of the day courts and now the most recent data that we looked at we're seeing a pretty significant shift and now it is you know 46% of cases are being withdrawn and settled and um this is significantly more than what we are seeing in the other magisterial district courts in the county where this program is not available so that is what our data and our analysis this shows here at the housing Alliance and we looked at you know filings through that are um or data from the administrative office of the Pennsylvania courts but the really best way to hear about what's happening in these programs is to talk about the people who are or talk to the people who are running them so with that uh I am going to stop sharing my screen and um bring it over to the panel so I do just want to give everybody a chance to quickly introduce themselves and introduce their organization so I would say we would go in alphabetical order but it's everybody has an a name but we'll start with Aaron I get a lot of pocket dials so I I get that first in the alphabet thing a lot uh good to be with you'all today my name is Ain herb I'm the executive director at just mediation Pittsburgh so we are the folks that organize the mediations between landlord and tenants and work with both of these organizations to do so great uh Abby right um Erin and Adam it's never occurred to me that we all share that trauma of the a name like oh hey and it's like the inside of somebody's pocket like oh okay uh my name's Abby Ray lome I'm the executive director of Rental Pittsburgh uh we started in 2020 to assist families in accessing covid rental relief um and then through collaboration with the create Lab at carnegi melon University started doing Outreach to households in alagan County with eviction filings against them to ensure that they were aware of the CDC moratorium and from that Outreach um we really have built a niche of providing resource navigation assistance to families experiencing eviction um experiencing orders for possession or at risk of it in terms of mediation hi everybody uh my name is Adam Debo I manage the housing department at Neighborhood Legal Services um we are the legal aid firm uh which covers alagan Beaver Butler and Lawrence counties um we provide the legal assistance um the legal advice prior to mediations and we provide um one part of the legal assistance giving attorneys to the lawyer of the day program uh to two courts in uh the city of Pittsburgh great so often eviction is thought of as a zero some game right with clear winners and losers but uh that there are only these two outcomes but in looking at the impact of your program uh we see that you're helping landlords and Tenants come to an agreement and I'm just curious what you all think makes your program such a success first here yeah well you know just one of the things that I think about right away is um the shifts that I've exper so so I think on the mediation side of things it feels kind of obvious perhaps how mediation is a more collaborative environment and how that helps both parties then um come to agreements that can benefit them more and so we will definitely speak to that a lot but I just actually want to shout out uh lawyer of the day first as the person of the three of us on this call who who does not administer that program I came into this work in 2020 with with just mediation Pittsburgh um with a very clear sense of a attys in in the legal aid space for tenants um being like so gung-ho in that space that the that you could like lose the forest for the trees you know like win the individual argument perhaps lose what's good for the parties themselves and again mediation is good in that space But I just want to like shout out the work that Adam and his team have done to actually present a place for very much advocating for the tenant no apologies about that no mistakes there anything but um in a way that is asking like what is going to help make this situation work well and the lawyer of the day program has just been an excellent place in the court system for that to occur um so even as even as mediation is like a first place to turn perhaps when we think about collaboration what the stories that I here in this close collaboration are that lawyer of the day is a place where attorneys like going to those courts enjoy having these teams there because they're places where Solutions are found um even after somebody has made the choice to file which is a choice that they could avoid if they went to mediation instead um I think it's interesting between the the two programs um and in the one room in mediation um Ain and I have to work with our landlord Partners a lot to ensure that understand that the resource Navigator is indeed a tenants Advocate um and in that space uh the resource Navigator has a prolonged relationship frequently with the landlord because we work with them time and time and time again and every now and then we'll have a tenant who does not feel as comfortable sharing their story or sharing their concerns um in the lawyer of the day space the resource Navigators again have these prolonged ongoing relationships but very often um we actually get to be the Ally to the landlord in the room because the tenants are represented by attorneys who are actually going to be doing all of the um advocating inside of that space so one of the the things that I think has led to these very positive outcomes is that we are recognizing the importance of a resource Navigator as a tenant Advocate um as well as a translator to a landlord of the benefits that they get by working with us um and meld those two two together to ensure that households are accessing the assistance that they need to stay in their homes and landlords are actually getting the aers that they need covered I I'll pick it up off off the you know covering the aers is foundational right like the work that rent help Pittsburgh is doing is foundational to getting everybody back on track after the pandemic after uh the filing rates started to to get back to normal and and hopefully don't go above uh pre-filing uh pre-pandemic rates at this point but rental assistance has been foundational but I think even with rental assistance one of the things that Aaron was talking about was by the time you've made it to court uh the communication between landlord ATT tenant has really deteriorated to a degree where it's gotten to the point where you have to go to court have to but where you've gone to court um and I think Aaron is right that uh a lot of the attorneys who were going to court prior to us starting this program where you know a lot of times winning the case and is uh helpful for your tenant and that's their best interest but there's a lot of times where uh reaching a Peaceable solution uh and and getting the aers paid and getting that communication back on the men between landlord and tenant is going to put them in a more stable place to maintain their housing moving forward so you're looking at not just winning a battle or winning the particular case at hand but looking at it and I hate this word but I say it all the time more holistically and trying to figure out how to resolve like the underlying issues and to make sure that like oh if there's an issue next time instead of going to court maybe landlord will call Tenant or maybe they'll mediate or maybe you know we'll find uh another um uh resolution outside of of going to court here and I think that's been kind of bridging that communication gap has been a very large part of the success of the program as well excellent excellent so for my next question I just want to focus in a little bit on the landlord tenant mediation program and just what does that process look like from beginning to end um I'm sorry I was getting distracted by the um chat in the side which I'd love to address at some point and and get to that Gil can can you frame that again for me uh what does a typical landlord tenant mediate process look like beginning to end yeah thank you um right now we are only doing landl tenant mediations from from just mediation Pittsburgh at the pre-filing level so before a landlord has decided to file against their tenant um we are doing mediations uh between landlords and tenants and so either landlord or tenant or even a third-party like social service provider or something that's most likely working with a tenant um can reach out to JMP to request mediation um JMP team talks with the person who's requested the mediation make sure they understand that they've requested in fact to talk with the other party because um that's just culturally something that we're not as comfortable with um is actually like directly confronting something that has been going wrong and thinking about what can I do what can you do to help resolve this issue um and and once that person who's requested mediation has agreed to it fully we then contact the other party so if the landlord requested this um which they often do because we've built some Partnerships with them um we'll out to their tenant but similarly if a tenant has requested this we'll reach out to their landlord and see if they're willing to mediate with us which means explaining to them that this is a place where um uh you have free access to a third party the mediator who can help um each person listen to each other and also be really clear about what they need so that they're fully addressing the range of of of issues that might be on the table a tenant might be coming to mediation because there's been a habitability issue that they really need addressed to be able to live in a safe inh habitable place a landlord might be com to mediation because rent was behind by a month or two and and they need that addressed um neither of those need issues needs to take priority over the other the mediation is there for all issues to be addressed by the parties as much as they are willing to address them um so it's a very much very much like a a voluntary but um motivated space to come to a mutually satisfying agreements essentially right before you have to spend money to go to court before you have to go through the stress of of working in that system what can we do here um and and we work the process involves working very closely with rentel and NLS so once parties have decided to mediate my staff reaches out to rentel um who has mediation resource Navigators who are there to advocate for the tenant and and um navigate various resources but especially rental assistance resources to help Grease the wheels for a mediation agreement you can say what you want to do um here are some resources that will help you do what you said you want to do to be made whole um and similarly at that time we're reaching out to Neighborhood Legal Services um if a tenant has requested legal advice prior to a mediation um and in fact we we have an opt out system for that legal advice for um public housing recipients so that folks who are receiving any kind of a subsidy um know that they have legal advice available to them prior to their mediation um because we know that informed tenants lead to more sustainable agreements which is good for the tenants of course and very good for a landlord too you're working with a more educated party who knows what's possible for them so once those resources have been explored and there's a lot more detail that yall could speak to as well there um we then have the mediation our community mediators who we've trained in 40 hours to mediate these services so they're experts in what they do um mediate these disputes over Zoom which has made things um more accessible than than an in-person mediation might where you have to take two buses and and walk a mile to be able to get to where you'd be going um and and once parties have had their mediation and whether they reached an agreement or not um they will receive kind of a followup from what happened there and if they reached an agreement which they do 98% of the time in our program um they get a copy of their agreement and it's an addendum to their lease that says this is what we've agreed to on top of what the provisions of our lease already say um we have agreed to and committed to do together and then there's usually work for rent help to do from there and and sometimes from NLS and maybe I'll turn it over to y'all to explain that you're muted I thought so um yeah so as Erin said prior to the mediation we start reaching out to tenants about a week before their mediation um and if it's a new landlord we will also reach out to the landlord um with the tenants what we're really discussing is what led to our current situation and what do you think that you need to resolve it um almost always it includes rental assistance but many other times it is that they need a new job or they want a new career path they recently had a child they need access to child care um you know they started a new job they were just behind due to income but now they really want to understand how they can make their dollars stretch as effectively as possible and we are going to work with them to identify other service prod excuse me service providers in alagan County um to help remedy those longer term needs um once the mediation is complete and we have the agreement in hand um then we can work with them on the rental assistance component we will have already done the assessment based on previous usage um access to different rental assistances in alagan County we at the beginning of 2023 made the decision to combine all of our rental assistance programs into one umbrella um through DHS and then administered through action housing and then action housing subcontracts a handful of service providers rent help included to work with people on their rental assistance applications um so we'll work with both the tenant and the landlord to get the application completed and we see the application all the way to the point of payment so we're also the point of contact if there's any sort of issue with um an a not making it to the bank account but also if a landlord files after the mediation has um been completed we are typically still in touch with that tenant and so we will then be referring um back to Neighborhood Legal Services for an eviction filing I was just going to touch a little bit on on our role but mostly how it facilitates the the rental assistant and the folks coming to terms on a mediation um so we talk to people beforehand and and sometimes our advice is like Aaron said just make making sure that tenants are well informed you know nobody our our kind of philosophy is nobody ever made a worse decision by being more well informed so folks aren't mediating with a misunderstanding of what their rights are or they're not mediating um with with a kind of thought in their mind that isn't true maybe they think that they have a you know a better case or better claim than they actually do and sometimes our best advice is you know um you you're mistaken about what's going on it's really in your interest to to to reach a conclusion here um and sometimes telling tenants that their landlord is in fact correct is not what they want to hear but we are welcome to be the bearers of that news um but then again once uh you know once there is a mediation reached uh we can review mediation agreements as well we do that often um and as Aaron said they are um they are leas adendum so that's really helpful for enforcement and things like that um but really it's it's there is legal advice but it's also an education role to make sure that folks uh go in and and uh go into mediation with uh the most knowledge about their uh about their landlord tenant relationship and then feel comfortable signing their agreement with a review as well great thank you did you Gail in that question want us to go through sort of the timeline of lawyer of the day as well that was going to be my next question oh okay good yes now that we've talked about landlord tenant mediation you know what does a a typical day for lawyer of the day look like or what does the sort of typical experience for a tenant look like um so lawyer of the day will start at rentel um actually it will start with a landlord going to the magisterial district court to file we have 46 courts in alagan county and rentel does actually do Outreach to tenants at all 46 courts though the lawyer of the day program is in Four Courts inside of the city of Pittsburgh um and we've been there since October of 2022 so it's going well um the point that the eviction is filed uh rent help has a docket scraping system that essentially pulls the dockets as they are processed into the UJS Portal into a um database that allows us to see all new filings um s Ed by judge um from that in collaboration with alagan County Department of Human Services we start doing Outreach to all of the families with an eviction filing against them um our first round of Outreach is text we actually have had really good success with text um in an average sense we probably have close to a 55% good numbers rate uh which is terrific it's terrific so thank you DHS um after texting We Begin calling we have access to um previous rental assistance applications and so on so we also will email any email addresses that they've provided for previous applications um the timeline for the Outreach is really tight from when an eviction is filed to when we're going to be in court is around 7 to 10 days um so we are hitting the Outreach as hard as possible so that we can make the referral to neighborhood or the other legal partner ebony law in advance of the hearing so that when the attorneys go in they are prepared to represent at that time um for all those that we are not able to connect with in advance we have resource Navigators in the courts um who essentially are receiving folks um in order to do realtime registrations and then refer them in person to the attorney that is also present um and then through throughout our relationship with them as referenced many times we're working with them on rental assistance utility assistance what what brought you here and what is it going to take to prevent you from getting here again yeah so like Abby Ray said the the ideal situation is that uh the text Outreach is done it's that's a crucial role in in uh making sure that we're casting a wide uh as wide of a net as possible for the courts that we're in and getting as as many folks to the legal providers prior to their court date because that makes life better for everybody for uh for resource Navigators for the attorneys for the tenant and the landlord right fingers crossed you can get to court and something is nearly resolved by the time that you get there um so we reach out to those clients that were referred prior to the court date um we figure out the best resolution for them sometimes that's a straight up legal uh defense that they have um but most of the time um It's a combination of a little bit of that and rental assistance as well sometimes it's just straight up rental assistance um so again we give them that information we give them that advice and then we are uh stationed there in the courts uh on the days that there are the the landlord tenant hearings uh we met with the four judges for The courtrooms that we are in talked to them about how they are scheduled their hearings making sure that they're having their landlord tenant hearings on a day where we will have the legal aid staff there in addition to the uh resource navigation staff and we talk to our clients as they come in and like Abby Ray said for the folks that we weren't able to get in contact with prior to the court date um they are uh given an intake uh for rental assistant right then and there referred to a legal partner right then and there um and the judges understand after working with our program for you know uh probably over a year and a half at this point um just about a year and a half at this point that uh you know we're going to connect them to all the resources possible they'll usually Grant continuances and then we have our hearings for cases that have to have hearings um maybe rental assistance is dispersed uh and we we get some outcomes at that point but realistically if if the process goes as smoothly as possible um we are ready to we have our solution to the case prior to the court bait and we are just at that point taking the steps to get that solution uh into practice right whether that be we get a twoe continuance for the rental assistance application to get processed or we get a recertification done or whatever it might be the solution is already on the table by the time we get to court uh for the first time uh for those folks that are early and active and and responsive to those text messages um I'm not sure if you want us to discuss outcomes at this point or if that was going to be another question or if there's any follow-up questions about that uh would I think it's a nice natural segue if you want to get into some of the the outcomes that you've been able to achieve I mean we showed some of the outcomes right this you know dramatic increase in cases withdrawn and settled but are there other outcomes that of course is not reflected in the Court data that you would like to share yeah sure so I think the first thing uh I'll just preface it with this because um the unfortunate part is our noshow rates for cases have gone way way way down with this affirmative Outreach done by rentel Pittsburgh but unfortunately um there still needs to be a lot of I think education around how landlord tenant addiction proceedings work and some folks get very scared when they get a notice to quit things like that um so we do still see a few no shows um which is unfortunate we're trying to to minimize those but for folks that are either responding to text messages or showing up in court right we've you've filtered into the program in some way shape or form we categorize our positive outcomes a little bit differently um you know you've done settlements and withdrawals which I think is kind of what generally folks would consider positive outcomes for both landlord and tenant right the landlord has chosen to withdraw the case under their own poition you know that's an affirmative action taken by the landlord to withdraw the case or a settlement right they've come to court they've said we've been paid up we've reached a resolution this case can be marked as settled um and I think judges see them that way as well um but things that we also capture as positive outcomes are dismissals um and these happen for a few reasons sometimes judges just see these dismissals as being uh equivalent to withdrawals or settlements and this is basically just judges defining these things different ways so we've seen our rates of dismissals go way up um as well and then judgments for uh the tenant as well um we see these as positive outcomes because if there is a case where there has to be a strict legal defense raised uh we will make that and potentially win that case um or sometimes we actually have landlord Nosh shows right the landl Lord got paid they didn't show up to court because they got their money um and and sometimes we see those as dismissals and or for judgments for defendants as well so you know when you're taking into account the withdrawals and the settlements you had it uh an increase of nearly 40% that's true with those with those statistics when we're capturing our uh positive outcomes as we call them we're looking at uh somewhere in the the I 60s right so we're looking at an aggregate of nearly a 60% increase in those positive outcome rates that we see um and and I think this doesn't take into account as well is obviously it's everyone's goal to prevent a judgment against the tenant for many reasons right the tenant doesn't want to have a judgment looming over their head and even if there is a judgment the landlord has to go through additional steps to actually try to collect on that which is a pain um so this our positive outcomes uh and this one can't really be captured by uh the magistral district court dockets would be cases where there is a judgment that is later Satisfied by rental ass assistance as well um and when we take those into account we're looking at somewhere in the 70s um so for our four particular courts that were in we were looking at I think the stat that you had pre pre pandemic was about 8% of the withdrawals or settlements um and if you're incorporating all of what we consider as a positive outcome right we're looking at somewhere in the the the mid 70s um for our positive outcomes and and that's again good for everybody landlords are getting paid these relationships between landlord ATT tenant are being repaired and every judge that we've talked to um is extremely happy right it's it's far better to have multiple individuals in the courtroom who are working towards a a single unified solution as opposed to two people in the courtroom who don't even want to talk to each other um so the judge's feedback on on that front has been has been great as well um but again I mean I can toss it over to to iir Andor Aon right it's it's it's a huge foundational part of it is is rental assistance as well and that that's truly what keeps a large part of this program afat is landlords are being made whole as well I think maybe outcomes that I would highlight from the mediation program are again one that our our settlement rate is a really important one and it's a nice flashy number of 98% of um people who have agreed to mediate together do in fact then reach an agreement once they're in their mediation together uh that is not a number that we were ever shooting for because it felt really unrealistic the like Adam said rental assistance and then bringing in re uh resource navigation to help parties actually um find like tangible ways to make agreement and sustain agreement together has been huge legal aid for tenants to be able to come in more educated I think has also played a role in that number being so high and I've been saying it now for like three years um and it hasn't happened yet but it but it has to happen that that number will go down right especially as rental assistance um luxuries of the covid and somewhat postco World um have have uh dwindled and are now reaching a a huge inflection point um we know that rental assistance will look different than it has for these last few years we don't know how exactly but I would assume less to a degree and we're fighting hard to make sure that in alany County there's a really robust rental assistance landscape so that not so that people come back to the trough forever of course but so that when they are showing the initiative like they are in these two programs and and maybe especially in mediation to try and address issues before they have to go the the nuclear route of of filing and perhaps going to court and then perhaps actually getting an order for possession um that they're trying to work things out and if you're trying to work things out are there ways that um our city and county can support those parties to stabilize housing so 98% um agreement rates have been incredible I would expect those to drop they haven't for years so I've kept on being wrong as I try to like um set expectations in a more reasonable place um but another another thing that I want to highlight um as far as an outcome in some ways is who's actually mediating these cases so again JMP has trained community members to be the mediators we're a community mediation Center so we are not trying to only have a really like professionalized group of folks mediating these cases otherwise we would have hired you know like three staff and they would mediate all the time um what we do instead is have Community mediators mediate these cases after they've been really well trained and that we we pay them stipend to do that and that has allowed us to have a mediator pool that um better reflects the parties that are in mediation um so we have folks who have been landlords or are landlords who are mediating we have folks who have experienced eviction um and and been evicted either in childhood or adulthood who are now mediating we have folks who have worked in the housing space more broadly to help support folks especially tenants who have been at risk of losing their homes um and we also have a much more diverse um pool of mediators economically and racially then we might have otherwise if this was a professionalized or if this was a voluntary mediation pool uh so about 50% of our mediators are people of color um which is above the um rates of of white and non-white populations in Pittsburgh um but a little more in line with the people who are being threatened with eviction which we know are historically like like Gail said people of color women LED households um and of course low-income households as well um so that's not necessarily an outcome but it's something that I always want to highlight because the program can take many shapes and different places will set up different programs we wanted when for as long as we had the luxury to while we were paying mediators as as as Community mediators to be able to make sure that that meant that we were recruiting a really like rich and diverse um range of who our community actually is great great um so I think uh my last question to all of you before we open it up to some questions from the audience is uh you know what are the key steps that are people that are looking to replicate your program should be aware of um I don't know if we want to break it up by the landlord tenant mediation program versus lawyer of the day because they are two separate programs I would put forth firstly don't try to do it alone um Co this what we have had the most important ingredient to Our Success um up to this point has been that this is a deeply collaborative and far ranging vision of eviction prevention um if rent help had shown up on the scene and was like we're going to build this thing and when we did you know we didn't have close ties with JMP and we didn't have close ties with NLS we were all sort of operating in our own sectors um and realizing the need for the overlap and the ways that our different focuses supported the overall vision of the individual programs but also the eviction prevention um goal as a whole was huge in enabling us to Garner much broader support from the city from the county um and from so many of our peer organizations um that none of us were showing up at the table one at a time and saying my organization's going to do this thing we always show up together and say our organizations have been building this together um and here's our success so far yeah I think just to to go off off of that a little bit this idea was n just I mean we didn't pull it out of thin air right this is based upon uh kind of an amalgamation of a lot of other programs that weren't just mediation and weren't just rental assistance and weren't just lawyer of the day Andor you know a kind of precursor to right to counsil or whatever it might be um it was looking at other cities that have General eviction diversion programs looking at the resources that we have in the city and in Alle County and understanding what how we can best utilize those resources um obviously we we looked at folks in Philadelphia a lot but you know we we really started meeting as this collaborative during covid um and came out of it in late 2020 uh with this concrete program that we had that you know hopefully folks don't even have to get to lawyer of the day because cases are getting mediated but if they do we are you know we're in these courts you're getting access to rental assistance you're getting access to Legal Aid so it was a lot of planning a lot of prep a lot of leg work and that goes into you know making sure that our organizations are working together as SE seamlessly as possible making sure that landlords understand what it is because some landlords are like I got to show up to a court where there's going to be a lawyer arguing against me every day like don't want that but that's that's not you know we're here to find a resolution as well um and making sure that the judges know what's going on right you're disrupting the way that a court has worked for the last however many years um and some of the judges we already had good relationships with some of the judges were new and were welcoming to these ideas they've all been welcoming but um you have to look at them and say we're going to be posted up in your courtroom every week until until we can't any longer and it's gonna fundamentally change the way that you handle landlord tenant cases um so there's a lot of groundwork that needs to be laid before you just do this but as long as you have your resources and and you utilize the help of other folks that have programs like this then it's definitely doable you know the the blueprints are are out there even down to scheduling I was just thinking um all of the courts that we are in and this is true for basically all the courts in alagan County tend to do some eviction hearings each day and for this to succeed we needed the courts that we were in to select a day and we needed it to be a different day than the other courts so that we could man each Court correctly um and that took us a few months of working with the judges to make sure because you know at first they were resistant and I've always done it this way and then why weren't you there this tenant like really needed your guys' program and and we're like and this is exactly why we need you to to to choose a day we have Tuesdays available on the mediation side of things just to add to what Adam and Abby Ray have said with collaboration is gonna address some of Anna's question in the chat too um for mediation we were introducing a a a familiar word a familiar tool but a new place to be doing that and using that tool to have mediation in a landlord tenant space instead of Court where people like know the formula in alag county that formula was 86% of the time a landlord's going to win in their filing um and and so with mediation we we knew from talking with um Partners over in Philadelphia who have a great eviction diversion program that most of you probably know about um we knew that in a voluntary mediation process um prior to the pandemic they had you know gotten I think a couple hundred requests from tenants to do mediation with their landlord and they had only had a few landlords accept that invitation um so we knew we had to reach out to landlords as we were developing this program to say here's what this tool is here's how it can benefit you um so that they knew this is something that's actually worth their investment of time um and it's worth saving their money for essentially amazingly difficult to break that habit of paying money to go to court to lose money by not getting rental assistance rental re paid if you evict a tenant um in court you think it's dollars and cents um but the free market is not working in that way um it it is easier sometimes for landlords to go to court and lose money to get what they want which is the tenant gone and so we had to do a lot of persuasion to say to to explore like do you want that is that is that the actual solution here or is that the tried andrue method that is costly and a Time suck and actually not good for your business and not good of course for whatever relationship you might have with your tenant so a lot of landlord Outreach um with the housing authorities we did a lot of work with them and they were receptive over time to this and so they've become incredible referral partners for mediation where we have tried to work with them just to say okay if you're bought into mediation let's make the referral process easier for you and so we've worked with them to do that so it's less burdensome for them on the front end of things and similarly they've worked with us to be able to think about and then adapt to okay if we're saying we want to work with tenants to keep them here but also to write the wrongs and not just have some kind of a blanket forgiveness here um what might that require of us how might we need to extend our our repayment plan policy so that people can um feasibly pay back what is owed if rental assistance is not available and they're on a fixed income um they they've been really responsive to that and so I really recommend if you're looking to start up any of these programs to think about reaching out to the partners and the the stakeholders who you might not have thought would additionally be receptive to this because um there's there's a case to be made and I appreciate you mentioning that Aon because Anna Smith asked in the chat I will say at at this stage our two largest housing authorities are also two of our biggest fans it took many years um to get to get reality to look this way um it started first with I think a lot more collaboration between NLS and cjp and RHP on who we were seeing evicted and being able to hold the housing authorities to account to their own mission statement to what they Proclaim to be doing um and really publicly saying like if you're going to be doing this while you're saying this why aren't you going to mediation where we can help you um but it it was it was years of building these relationships to get them as successful and Cooperative as they are and on that again briefly as well I mean I I think just by numbers the housing authorities have to be some of the biggest evictors in in really any community so those are the folks that we have seen in court we see the the same property managers we've seen their attorneys in court many many times before we started this program um and I think that's one of the reasons you develop those relation ships and you can say well we have a better way to do this now right we have a way where um you can expend less resources going downtown to the court of common pleas going to arbitration going to trial you can expend less resources in evicting somebody um if you work with us on this program and at some point it comes down to sometimes like what Aaron said the dollars and cents right it's it's it is good for everyone's bottom line if rental assistance is paid and folks become whole right 10 keep a roof over their head landlords get paid rent delers but if the case also has to go onto litigation um or that's the path that it might be headed working out some sort of other resolution um at the magistrate level when you can have attorneys talking to each other or you can have somebody there trying to bridge that communication gap like I talked about saves the housing authorities sending two property managers off their site to arbitration sending an attorney to arbitration sending those same folks back to trial you know having them on motion hearings it saves a lot of hours and and kind of time where folks are away from doing what their their other jobs are right that managing the properties and things like that um and just kind of sitting down and explaining those things to them I think was also extremely helpful great thank you so I think we have time for probably one more question um and uh that question looks at you know what if you guys are looking at um data on positive outcomes for the court themselves and convincing them to collaborate with programs such as yours Iber if you want to start or I can kind of just um blinda I'm not sure that we have much data in terms of how this saves the Court's money um I think what it does more so like what our judges have reported is it allows them to do their job more easily and with the intent that they pursued their job um in like they actually do get to work with the parties in front of them from far less of a he said she said um and far more of a a well-informed understanding and I think for the judges that we work with and the many judges that wish we were there it is it is that leveling that is the the great appeal 100% I was and I'll I'll you know reflect back to what Aaron was saying about neighborhood doing some premediation advice the F the thing I did right before this webinar was speak to a client who has a mediation coming up and she kept the best records of any client that I've maybe ever talked to in my entire life she had rental receipts from 2019 and I went through every single one of them and I was think thinking to myself the entire time this is incredible I wish every one of my clients was as prepared as this my life would be so much easier my job would be so much easier and that's what the judges are getting right like when you come into court and you've already talked to rent Health Pittsburgh and your rental assistance application is already underway and you've already talked to Neighborhood Legal Services or our partner Ebony and they already understand where your legal where your legal grounds are at and you already have a solution on the table by the time you get to court the judge just says what's going on and instead of having two parties who don't want to talk to each other give two versions of the same story maybe they're bickering um it's a he it's a he said she said like Abby Ray was talking about instead there's a resource Navigator who says yep we have this document and this document the application is on this step and the there's the attorney saying you know this is what's happening this is the legal defense and we need to do X Y and Z to put the tenant in a better position so that this doesn't happen happen again so instead of having to draw out the facts and draw out the testimony and put in serious groundwork to just understand what's going on that's just presented to the judge off the top as soon as the hearing starts on most occasions so I I don't know if that if that data is it's not quantifiable right but we we have meetings with the judges regularly um and they love the program for that reason and also I mean no judge wants to go to their job and be the person that has to evict everybody that comes in front of them um and they also don't want to go to their job and have to look at every landlord and say sorry you're not getting paid um and with our program they don't have to do either of those things Belinda did have another question a little bit more about like details um and just to like scan through those real quick Belinda um like wanting to program uh beginning conversation so I think we've given you some beginning conversation points we don't have technology requirements for um the courts uh rentel had invested in tablets for our team and so that they could register in real time and they they don't use those we've really found that paper registration and then going back to the office and entering has worked out best um at present do have program requirements that are based on our fun our funding is the city of Pittsburgh's Housing Opportunity fund um so it is local taxes and that is pretty much our exclusive funer for lawyer of the day and that has a 50% Ami and requires that they are in the city of Pittsburgh which is a little difficult because one of the courts that we're in Is On The Border um so that part can be a little bit tricky um but we're lucky that NLS is a partner in that court because we are able to who refer to Neighborhood using different funding sources um to to cover those folks um and cost to administer the program not sure off the top of our heads even though we make budgets it feels like every two or three months and so you'd think it would be there but apologize no worries we can include some of that uh information in followup um but I do think think that kind of maybe gives a nice segue to how we want to round out today's uh conversation you know these programs are so powerful they're so impactful and as Aon mentioned earlier the resources that really seated these programs came through the pandemic and they're starting to go away and so we really want to see a permanent State investment in uh eviction prevention programming that we know is critical to preventing homelessness and so the housing Alliance is in fact working on this issue and we do have a sign on for support for a a permanent State investment in uh eviction prevention programs and programs that do have these three core components that are working together that is you know the direct assistance the uh dispute settlement component whether it be lawyer of the day or landlord tenant mediation as well as the resource navigation so uh we do hope that you will uh sign on to that letter Jen can we put that in the chat if not H Jen is going to put it up in the chat we are also going to send it out with the follow-up materials uh we have links on our website um of course if you aren't already signed up for a newsletter because you signed up for this you should be getting it so we are most certainly going to be keeping people apprised as uh we work on this uh very very important resource to support these great programs um also if you are starting these programs and are looking to get connected to other folks who are doing this work please feel free to reach out to me I am happy to facilitate any connections and peer learning uh that I can and the housing Alliance can so uh with that I want to say thank you to our amazing panel for uh giving us a little bit of their time and expertise today and to thank all of you for joining us and uh we will see you next time thank you all so much like Gail said we will send out the recording and all the materials afterwards and remember today is the last day to register for our rural housing Summit and our landbank Summit take care everyone have a good day