The Face of Unexpected Homelessness

By: Monique Henderson, Director of Development and Communications, AVLF

Even though it was twenty years ago, I remember it like it was yesterday. I was thirteen and had just started my freshman year of high school. School had only been in session for a few weeks, when I ran for, and won a seat on our class student council as a “Senator”. Like most 9th graders, I was nervous and anxious about starting a new school. My trepidation wasn’t just centered around this being a new venture, but how would a middle class girl like me fit in with all the kids from the other feeder middle schools, as well as the large majority of students who came from very wealthy households?. With nearly 1,500 students, my high school was twice as large as the middle school I had just graduated from. And I had heard all through 8th and 9th grade how wealthy the kids at this school were. The juniors and senior didn’t just have their own cars; they drove BMWs and Mercedes Benzs, and lived in sprawling homes with pools and tennis courts in their back yards!

However, despite my fears, I managed well. Six weeks into the school year, I was on the honor roll, had already joined the French Club, art club, swim team, and won a seat on the student council with some of the most popular kids in our school. I easily made a ton of new friends, loved my classes and was generally looking forward to this new endeavor called high school. Life was good!

The afternoon that I found out that I was elected a “Senator”, I couldn’t wait to get home so I could call my mom at work to share the good news. When the last bell of the day rang at 2:30, I made a bee-line to my bus. I was giddy with excitement and busting at the seams with joy the entire bus ride to our neighborhood. “Congratulations, Monique” my friends shouted as they exited the bus’ double doors as we arrived at their stops. “See you tomorrow!” When we finally arrived at my drop, I bounced out of my seat, made my way down the narrow aisle, burst through the doors of the bus, and began to run the two blocks through our subdivision to our three bedroom, two story home.

As I approached our house, I began to slow my pace. I squinted my eyes. It looked like someone was moving or having a yard sale; there were massive piles of furniture and clothes, and toys strewn on the lawn, curb, and sidewalk. But there was no one around. Why would someone decide to have a yard sale in the middle of the school day, I wondered?. I’m five houses away now. Something is wrong. My heart begins to race. While it’s still in the distance, the pile appears as if it’s right in front of our house. What in the world is going on? As I near the pile of things, I begin to recognize the white dresser and nightstand from my bedroom. Are we moving? Mom didn’t say anything about us moving, I think to myself. I stop in my tracks, confused by the sight. Other kids whirl past me on their way home from the bus stop. “Look at all that stuff,” one boy exclaims. “I think someone got evicted,” his friend answers as they walk past me. Evicted? What did that mean? I’d never heard that term before. I sprinted the short distance to the pile of things awaiting me on the sidewalk. My stomach was in knots, my heart was pounding, my head was throbbing from the intense Florida sun beaming down on me like the reality of the situation I was facing. I stood over the things. I knew then for certain that they belonged to us. My dolls, clothes, and bedroom furniture. Our couch, ottoman, dining room table and television sets. My mom’s bed, her shoes, and suits. My brother’s remote control trucks and little green army men were strewn all over the front lawn and sidewalk. Everything we owned was sitting in front of our house for public display. “Are ya’ll moving?” I heard a neighborhood kid ask me from behind. I wiped the tears that were welling up in my eyes. “Yes,” I lied without turning around. “Cause Shelly Rosen said ya’ll got evicted.” “No!” I said empathically. “I gotta go.” I made my way to the front door of our house and inserted my key into the doorknob. It would not turn. I wrestled with the key, shoving it in and out of the keyhole, praying it to unlock the door. No such luck. “I think ya’ll got evicted,” the girl said, still watching in awe from the sidewalk. “They probably changed the lock on ya’ll.” I wish she would shut-up. My mind is racing. I gotta call my mom. I head to a neighbor’s house four doors down and knock on the door. A middle age woman who sells candy to the neighborhood children comes to the door. “I’m locked out. Can I use your phone to call my mom?” I ask quietly. “Sure, you okay?” she inquires.

After reaching my mother at work, she rushes home. The next few hours are a whirlwind. Phone calls to a U-Haul facility to get a truck. Phone calls to my family in our native town of Washington, DC. Phone calls to my mother’s brother, our only relative in Florida who also lives just minutes away. Night falls and my brother, Michael, now home from middle school, and I take turns guarding our things on the sidewalk while my mom, still on the neighbor’s phone, reaches out to friends and family members to figure out our plan of action. We can already tell that some of our things are missing. Some of my mom’s jewelry, a VHS player, toys, and a new coat I just got for my birthday. Did the people who moved it out of the house take it? Or was it one of our neighbors? I don’t have the heart—or interest—in sharing the good news of my election to the student council with my family. It seems so insignificant now that my life seems to have been turned upside down. As I patrol the sidewalk, I think to myself what started out as the best day of my life, slowly begins to turn into the worst day of my life.

By 10pm that night, the majority of our household items were in a storage facility and we were checking into a motel. My brother and I, seeing my mom was distraught, didn’t have the heart to ask her how we ended up here, what happened. “We will probably be here a few days,” she tells us as we bunker down for the night. We don’t sleep that night. I feel nauseous and I want to cry, but I don’t want to upset my younger brother or my mother so I hold it in. The three of us spend the next nine days in this one room, dilapidated motel. We eat out for dinner every night because there is nowhere for my mom to cook. There are no school buses serving this motel, so my brother and I walk the 1 ½ miles to and from school each day for two weeks.

On our last day at the motel, my mom tells us that my uncle was able to get us in at an apartment near the beach. He has a friend that is the apartment manager and a unit just opened up. Michael and I were ecstatic! Not just because we were finally moving from this motel, but we would get our own rooms again…and we’d be near the beach. “That area is out of the district. Are we changing schools?” my brother asked my mother. “No, you’ll continue to go to the same school. I’m going to bring you to school in the morning and you will catch the city bus home in the afternoon. This is just a temporary move.” After getting the address and directions to the apartment from my uncle, we quickly pack our clothes and hop into the car.

As we near our new home, our excitement begins to fade. We soon realize the apartment, although near the beach, is in a seedy section of town. My brother and I sit bug -eyed in the back seat while we drive by police cars, ladies of the night, and men standing on the corner drinking liquor out of a paper bag. Having always lived in upper middle class neighborhoods, we were shocked to witness this side of life firsthand. The apartment itself is an old, one level, garden style brick building with glass doors and approximately seven units. We wait in the car as my mother retrieves our key from the apartment manager’s office. When she returns, we grab our suitcases and follow her tour new home. As she opens the door and we enter the unit, I’m shocked to see the apartment is only the size of a master bedroom. It’s an efficiency with a futon bed, a kitchenette, and an extremely small bathroom. I begin to cry hysterically. Where’s my bedroom? What is this place? My mother begins to explain that although we were not victims of abuse, this was a temporary shelter for women and their children who were fleeing domestic violence situations and that my uncle was friends with the woman who ran the apartments. She agreed to let us stay there for six months until we could move into our own place.

While some families face harsher realities, the next few months were very difficult for us. For the first three weeks, each night when we would go to sleep, we could hear the clawing of a rat scrambling around the small apartment. I was then, and am now, terrified of these pests. All I could think about was the horror movie I watched when I was 11 where the rats were eating people in London as they slept. I was certain this rat, which I had the unfortunate luck of seeing a few times as he scurried across the floor, was going to nibble my toes off during the night if I fell asleep. Needless to say, I was extremely sleep deprived for many a night. (Eventually, my brother found the hole that the rat was using to enter the apartment and we were able to seal it off.) During our second month at the apartment, the husband of another tenant who fled with their young daughter because of domestic violence, showed up with a rifle “to kill her”. Apparently, he tracked her down through family members who divulged her safe place location. On this particular afternoon, he shouted obscenities as he banged repeatedly on the front door of her unit with the weapon, threatening to break the door if she didn’t open up. Michael and I hid in the tiny bathroom of our unit until someone managed to call the police and he was arrested. I spent the next few months terrified that this man, or some random neighborhood person, would break the glass on our front door and kill us.

Back at school, my friends would constantly ask me if they could come over to our house to visit and hang out. It pained me to have to make up a million reasons as to why this was not a good day to have company over. I have swim practice after school, I would say. I have a project to work on. I’m going out of town to visit family. I’m going over another friend’s house. I never shared with any of them, not even my best friend of three years, the sad truth of where we were living. How could kids who had pools in their back yards, drove Mercedes Benz, ate lunch off campus every day understand what my family was going through…if I couldn’t understand it myself!

Shortly after Christmas my mother announced that we were moving back to the other side of town. I learned to hold my optimism and excitement until I knew exactly what situation we were moving into. As it turns out, by picking up two extra jobs while we were living at the safe house, she was able to save up enough money to get a condo a half mile away from my high school. We lived there for the next two years until my mother purchased a newly built ranch style home a few miles away.

A year later, as I was packing for college, I finally found out the details that led my family to become homeless overnight. My mother was renting the home we lived in from a gentleman who ended up having the property foreclosed on him. The bank, not knowing, and probably not caring, that we were renting the house, had our things removed from the property and the locks changed. Unfortunately, there was no Protecting Tenantsat Foreclosure Act (PTFA) back then to look after the rights of tenants like our family. Likewise, my mother, although college educated, was not savvy in the law and had no idea of her rights, if any, under Florida law. Nor was she aware of any organizations like AVLF that advocated on behalf of those families facing eviction, foreclosure, or landlord-tenant disputes.

I share this deeply personal story for two reasons. First, I think it’s important to humanize the statistics and stories you hear on the news of families being evicted from their home. Every Tuesday and Thursday at Fulton County Magistrate Court, as many as 300 families face the same uncertain future my family faced twenty years ago in Florida. Not all of them are guilty of not having paid their rent. Many of them have been illegally evicted or have outstanding landlord-tenant disputes, but just aren’t aware of their rights and may be unable to accurately articulate their case during mediation or before a judge. And, before they know it, they’ve been handed an Order to evacuate their homes within seven days. Last Tuesday I observed a dispossessory calendar at the Fulton County Courthouse. Hundreds of tenants, mostly women, many with small children in tow, were waiting to have their chance before the Judge. “I lost my job,” one would say. “They didn’t fix the heat,” another would say. Despite their pleadings, the majority were eventually told they would have to move out of their home just a few days before Christmas. I was saddened and overwhelmed as I looked into the eyes of these families.

Second, while my family’s bout with homelessness and our stay in the shelter was but one short chapter in my life, it left a profound impact on me and has a lot to do with who I am today, and why I’ve chosen this career tract. I’ve worked for nonprofit organizations for fifteen years; I value and have a deep appreciation for the work organizations such as AVLF do in the community. This year alone, more than thirty pro bono lawyers in our eviction defense program worked to protect Fulton County tenants facing imminent eviction from their homes. As a Development and Communications Manager, I also understand how much we rely on contributions from our constituents and stakeholders. Without volunteer attorneys and the donations of time and money we receive from these pro bono heroes and the firms and departments in which we work, we are compromised in our ability to protect those who face immiment eviction from their homes. The emotional shock of the world turning upside down in an afternoon is not unique to me, and we hope that you will volunteer your time, and make a donation to the Foundation, and in so doing help the next child avoid the trauma of losing her home.

All Hands on Deck

By: Toni Roberts, Paralegal, AVLF Domestic Violence Project

Remember the good old days when you could pull into a full service gas station and get everything you need to solve your car problems? A friendly attendant would meet you at the pump to assess your needs, then fill your tank, wash your windows, and check your tire pressure. If after chatting with you further services were needed, you could even pull into its bays and get an oil change or tune-up, and an evaluation as to any additional ways in which they might service your car.

Though full service gas stations are scarce these days, the comprehensive approach to addressing the needs of customers that it represents is very much alive and well. At AVLF, we recognize that when clients call or visit our offices seeking assistance with one problem, it is an opportunity for us to make a more sweeping impact than he/she may expect. Vital to the success of such an organizational concept is the ability to develop and maintain team concepts.

We have worked especially hard to implement this model in our Domestic Violence Project’s work at the Safe Families Office. Located in the Fulton County Courthouse, the Safe Families Office is a dedicated space out of which we, together with our partners, Partnership Against Domestic Violence (PADV) and the Fulton County Family Division, provide legal and safety planning assistance to survivors of intimate partner violence and stalking.

When someone visits the Safe Families Office requesting assistance with the filing of Temporary Protective Order, often many other issues are at hand. With the needs of the community steadily increasing and resources equally decreasing, it is impossible for the attorney handling the case to singularly address all of what may be uncovered. This creates the preferred circumstance wherein many advocates can participate in the process of providing solutions. Each such advocate is a key player.

For instance, our front line workers are those that do intake. When a survivor comes in, one of us will meet them at the door. Keep in mind that this is usually a very intense and stressful time for them. The incident of abuse is fresh, as many times are their bruises. They’ve reached a breaking point, still find it difficult to make public a very ugly truth that has likely been a long kept secret. And this is the time when life-changing decisions about the future will be made. What they need is a calm, friendly supporter who will be patient and reassuring. Trained to listen for certain indicators, the intake worker can also provide resources specific to the survivor’s additional needs. Just knowing that there are actually viable options for their safety and that of their children provides the survivor with a level of comfort that makes taking this step easier.

Sometimes, depending on the severity of the circumstances, going through with the filing of a temporary protective order is not the most ideal solution. This is the perfect time to call on another line of defense, PADV. Specializing in safety planning, operating local shelters, providing counseling opportunities, and hosting support groups, among other things, PADV staff and volunteers are well primed to usher survivors through the emergency planning process wherein they establish a safe exit strategy and can begin planning for their future.

Beyond receiving assistance with the pleadings, paralegals can also be very useful in getting the case ready for hearing. Sometimes that means assisting the Petitioner in obtaining phone records, police reports, photographs of injuries, or assessments of property damage. Sometimes it means contacting other agencies that can provide assistance with related matters, i.e. the Magistrate Warrant Office, for help in swearing out warrants for the abuser’s arrest on a criminal charge; or the Family Law Information Center, for assistance with the legitimation process; or United For Safety, same sex victims of domestic violence. Sometimes it means diligently pursuing alternate options to ensure that service of process is achieved.

But it also means paying special attention to situations that call for action through one of our other programs. There are numerous times when survivors of domestic violence also need a divorce, or assistance with an advanced directive, or help getting out of a lease entered into with the abuser. AVLF has programs and trained staff members that work specifically in each of these areas, allowing for an easy referral to be made on behalf of the victim. The thought of having to seek out help with these issues separately, in addition to all of the others that are looming, is enough to discourage anyone already in the throes of domestic violence from even attempting to do so. Their anxiety levels diminish greatly as they are apprised of access to what is essentially one-stop shopping.

More than any of that, being in the position to have more frequent contact with the client than, perhaps, the attorney, the paralegal/staff member assisting in the preparation of the case has the unique opportunity to become a real confidante. Oftentimes during this process, survivors are divulging extremely sensitive information for the very first time. They are exposing family secrets, sharing stories of heinous crimes, admitting embarrassing details, and shining a light on a life that they wished they hadn’t lived. All of this while processing feelings of guilt and shame. Having a consistent go-to person who listens, who doesn’t judge, who can explain the process, who essentially restores hope is, in my mind, an absolute priceless gift.

I have had the good fortune to walk through this process with so many strong, brave, determined survivors that have been willing to forsake everything material in order to take control of their lives back from their abusers. One of my favorites is Ms. Hall. She is an 89 year old woman who was being abused by her sons, both substance abusers. She had been cursed at, pushed down on the ground, hit, and even beaten with her own walking cane by them. She was so fearful that she locked herself in her bedroom every night. Mentally and physically exhausted by the time she came in, she told me that they could kill her without even touching her because her heart was so weak.

I’m pretty sure I talked to Ms. Hall every day during this process. I’d have to arrange for taxicabs to get her back and forth from the courthouse. As an elderly woman not familiar with the process, I had to explain exactly how things would work…several times. I had to get her water when she became fatigued. Very traditional in her thinking, I had to reassure her often that, although it pained her to have to do this, that she has a right to act in her own best interest for a change. I took several calls from her in tears when her family members criticized her for doing it. And, do you know what she told me? “You’re the only one who understands.” By this time, I’d become very protective of her, as well as her biggest fan.

You should know that everything with Ms. Hall turned out wonderfully. Not only were we able to assist her with her TPO, but we found out that she didn’t have a will and our advanced directives team went to her house and helped her with that, as well. Her comment to our staff was, “Thank God I found you all. Now I sleep all night long and get much-needed rest.”

Ms. Hall is now my best bud. In spite of her journey, she finds joy in her present circumstances. I talk to her on the phone pretty regularly; she keeps me on my toes – like most grandmothers do -- as well as in stitches. Last week I was informed that I was to report to her house at 4pm on Christmas Eve for dinner with her family. I consider it a privilege to have walked with her through some really dark days into the light of peace. And I feel confident that each one of us who worked with her through this process holds equal value to her and helped to truly change her life.

There are thousands more Ms. Halls out there that still need your help and mine. And as was the case at your favorite filling station of old, each stage of advocacy and input exercised in meeting their needs requires time, skill and commitment equally significant to the process. Without the level of teamwork in place that we and our volunteers provide, those seeking our assistance would not be positioned to receive the extent of wrap-around services that, through our collaborations, we are privileged to provide at the Safe Families Office.

Thank You for a Terrific Year!

December 3, 2010

Dear Friend of the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation:

AVLF looks quite different from the Foundation you may have known, worked with and supported even just a few years ago. Led by a solid and successful Strategic Plan, we are representing more clients, recruiting, training and involving more volunteer attorneys, and working more expansively in more courts than ever before.

It has been quite a year. In the past twelve months the Saturday Lawyer Program, now 40 years old, enjoyed a rebirth. Instead of simply being handed a file and asked to represent a stranger based on a telephone interview conducted by AVLF or Atlanta Legal Aid staff, volunteer attorneys now meet with potential clients to confirm that they believe there is a cognizable legal issue that should receive the assistance of pro bono counsel: the volunteer attorney then may decide to represent that client. This year, the Guardian ad Litem Program evolved to focus much more clearly on the placement of Guardians only in cases where the parties in dispute meet AVLF income guidelines. Our One Child One Lawyer Program matured, representing more than thirty children whose parents, having achieved stability and sobriety, graduated from the program allowing for reunification of mothers and children. As well, in 2010 the OCOL Program celebrated 8 adoptions of client children whose parents were unable to be successful in drug treatment into new "forever families."

The Chief Counsel for the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic Violence described the Domestic Violence Program's Safe Families Office as a "model best practices program." That Office, located in Courtroom 6G of the Fulton County Courthouse, saw more than 2900 victims of intimate partner violence. AVLF's Wills Program trained 156 lawyers in the art of will-drafting, coordinated eight outings to local Senior Centers and oversaw the drafting of 130 Wills in 2010. Lawyers of the Atlanta Bar Association's Estate Planning & Probate Section continued its outstanding work in the Probate Information Center, offering free 30 minuteconsultations scheduled by the Probate Court itself to those with probate questions. The new substantive issue that grew most dramatically in 2010 was the Protection of Tenants in Foreclosure, and AVLF attorneys worked with volunteers from the private Bar, partners in the public interest community and law students studying the foreclosure issue to secure legal protections for this vulnerable population and to plan for legislative advocacy in the coming years. While this work was expanding, more than 30 pro bono lawyers maintained our Eviction Defense Program's work protecting tenants facing imminent eviction from their homes.

Our signature fundraising event, the AVLF Winetasting, hosted in 2010 by Seyfarth Shaw at their exquisite new Atlanta offices, for the ninth consecutive year broke new ground, this year raising over $330,000. Over 500 individuals and nearly seventy law firms, accounting firms and related entities made generous donations to the cause. And please mark November 3, 2011 now- the 20^th Annual Winetasting will be spectacular.

But the most noticeable change about the Foundation is the fact that most of you noticed the changes! That is directly attributable to AVLF's very conscious expansion of our social network. Friend us on FaceBook. Read our blogs. Be Linked In to the AVLF Staff. Learn of our activities on Twitter. We want to make it easily possible for you to learn of pro bono opportunities, to keep pace with the news of the Foundation, and to help us to do everything we can to promote the possibility the clients, the legal community and the Courts will work together more effectively in the pursuit of equal access to justice.

While we have less funding than was available in 2009, in 2010 I am more convinced than ever that AVLF is a remarkable place, equipped to face the challenges and the possibilities that will surely mark 2011 as clearly as the opportunities and concerns that arose in 2010. Thank you for your interest in the work of the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation: our Board of Directors and our Staff join me in wishing you the very best throughout the holidays.

Warm regards,

Marty Ellin, Executive Director

Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation

Visit our website to learn more about AVLF's programs and services and/or to make an end of the year donation to our organization. Thank you for your support!