Hamilton County Clerk of Court asking for $100K to expand help center

The demand for legal aid through the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts' Help Center is increasing.

Since it started in 2017, the center has gone from serving about 10,000 people to being on track to serving around 23,000 this year. That's why Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Pavan Parikh told us he is asking the county commission for $100,000 to hire more attorneys and staff.

"Since our team came into office at the end of 2021, we've aggressively expanded it," Parikh said. "It started as two attorneys here and a clerk. We are now at four attorneys, including three attorneys specifically at the main courthouse ... and an attorney now at the juvenile court. And we've asked the county commission for additional money for next year to expand into domestic relations court."

Staff help provide legal aid in many instances including small claims cases, debt collection cases, custody issues and one of it’s major focus areas: landlord and tenant cases like evictions.

"Eviction is definitely the biggest issue that we deal with here," said Nick Zingarelli, the help center's director. "That is the recurring issue that comes up again and again."

In the past month, there have been 1,143 eviction filings in Hamilton County, according to national eviction tracker Eviction Lab. The help center assists renters connect to legal aid so that they better understand their rights including options like putting their rent money in escrow .

"Some people don’t know about it," renter Danielle Hughes said. "If you don’t know about it, then it can’t help you out."

Escrow is the only legal way in Ohio to withhold rent. This is when tenants deposit their rent with the court rather than pay it to the landlord.

"If [you're] trying to help people and expand a program to help people better their situations, yes, I feel like they should get the money," renter Jewanna Patterson told WCPO.