Dear Ms. McDonagh:
Please read the attached Word document.
Lena Kochman
______________________________
Maureen E. McDonagh
Lecturer on Law and Director of the Housing Law Clinic
The WilmerHale Legal Services Center of Harvard Law
School
122 Boylston Street
Jamaica Plain, MA
02130
Dear Ms. McDonagh:
My Section 8 voucher was taken from me by Metro Housing
Boston right after I raised my credit score by 60 points to 700, making me a
much more eligible applicant for housing.
I have appealed the decision; a date for the hearing to review that
decision has not yet been set. It would
be nice to have a lawyer with me at the hearing; I don’t think I’ll be
successful without that type of support.
I have been living in a homeless shelter since June 2017. I have had 4 case managers at that shelter
since then, of varying degrees of knowledgeability, honesty and
helpfulness. A court record error caused
me to be rejected from apartment buildings for months in 2017 until the
background checks revealed that the court had never updated the status of my
eviction case to reflect that the eviction was dismissed because I had followed
the terms of a court-approved, written agreement to leave my last apartment by
the end of May 2017. There is now a note
in the electronic court record which reflects that the lawyer for the other
side filed for dismissal, but I lost valuable time in the process of discovering
and fixing that error. I don’t even know
if background check agencies will read the entire court record to the end of
the page where the one-line note from September 2017 says “Notice of dismissal
without prejudice filed by Sidney Grove LLC,” my previous landlord.
Here’s the Web address for the court record as it is
today:
It was a retaliatory eviction case; I felt that I was
being stalked by maintenance and my concerns were met with denials and legal
action. I was too poor to successfully defend
my tenancy. I paid my rent on time and
maintained the apartment; my self-respect, not my behavior, was what the
landlord found objectionable.
I am enrolled in a job training program. This is the 5th week of the
program. I’m a good student.
Metro Housing Boston gave me a lot of extensions, but
nobody from Metro Housing Boston would ever tell me exactly how many completed
housing applications were required on each housing search log that I submitted
with my extension requests, although I repeatedly asked that question. I even sent them daily housing search logs
for a while; they didn’t want those, either.
I explained what my housing barriers were; my explanations did not
endear me to Metro Housing Boston, which finally accused me of not making a
“good faith effort” to obtain housing and took my voucher away.
Please let me know if you can help.
Sincerely,
Lena Kochman
_________________________
Email 5/06/19:
Hi Ms. Kochman,
I’m sorry but we are not accepting new cases at this time. Have you tried:
Tenant Advocacy Project
Harvard Law School
6 Everett Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone/Fax/Email:
Phone: 617-495-4394
Fax: 617-496-2294
Email: tap@law.harvard.edu
Maureen
__________________________
Email 5/07/19:
Ms. McDonagh,
Yes, I have; when I was trying to save my last apartment, the Tenant Advocacy Project wasn't taking new clients, and now I'm homeless.
It makes one wonder whom all of these agencies are helping. The websites about how fantastic you all are certainly don't say anything about everyone whom you turn away.
Just writing the letter to ask for your help was wearying; it's not as if your answer surprises me.
Lena Kochman
