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Free legal aid helps tenants navigate living conditions
By Erin Miller, Brianna Lanham,
1 day ago
Navigating the housing market can be a daunting task.
If you find yourself in a situation where you need immediate housing, which many people do, you might not have the luxury of time to inspect a property prior to moving in.
I spoke with one renter who says she moved in in a hurry, noticed and reported maintenance concerns - but nothing got fixed.
Her office, which services Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, the Eastern Shore, Hampton, Newport News, James City County, Williamsburg, Poquoson, York, Middlesex, and Mathews, oversees a number of civil cases.
“The types of cases we typically handle are housing cases. So, unlawful detainers when your landlord is seeking to evict you, or habitability issues,” says Bonfiglio.
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She says through the service area LASEV had 1,440 housing cases opened in 2020 and 2,186 housing cases opened in 2024.
“The crux of the matter, really, I think, stems from the lack of affordable housing in Hampton Roads,” she says.
Federal data in 2023 shows that across the country there were 61 affordable units for every one hundred renter households that earn no more than 30% of the area's median income.
The lack of affordable housing has put a growing number of families in a tough spot.
“In an ideal situation, a renter moving into the home would have, you know, time to do a thorough inspection of the home,” says Bonfiglio. “In reality, they don't always have the time to do that, and some people feel relatively pressured. It's hard to find a place and when they find something that was within their budget, they rush in pretty quickly.”
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I met a woman named April Jacobs who says that’s what happened to her.
"Due to the health issues [I had], my credit wasn't stellar. And so I had to kind of take what I could get. I was running out of time,” she says.
Jacobs moved her family from North Carolina to Virginia Beach.
“We were here [in the apartment] for approximately four hours before I just was like ‘this is completely unacceptable,’” she tells me.
Jacobs says she signed the lease because she didn't have anywhere else to go.
“I was willing to try to clean up until I just realized that it was just such an underlying problem that there was nothing that I could do to make it home for us,” she says.
Jacobs says several areas in the home were deteriorating, there were water leaks, and what she believed was mold.
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Documents Jacobs shared with me show she contacted the property owner and the city inspector.
The issue also went as far as litigation and a judge ultimately ruled against her. She tells me it was hard to pick one emotion to describe what she was feeling.
“[I’m] heartbroken, devastated, frustrated, angry, lost, confused, hopeless. I mean, just, overwhelmed with emotions, to be honest,” she says with a sigh.
Bonfiglio says it is harder for an unrepresented tenant to prevail in a case. I asked her why it's difficult for mold testing, and other independent testing, to hold up in court by an unrepresented tenant.
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She says the key to success is legal representation and cross examination in court.
“It’s essentially hearsay. It's an out-of-court statement and there is nobody in court that the other side can ask questions about,” she says.
When a judge doesn’t allow the information as admissible in the courtroom it can leave renters without much of a voice.
“That is the biggest issue that I see -- is there's the desperation on the tenant side. I have to take something, have to have a place to live. I have to have a place for my kids to live and so even if I walk into this house or apartment and I can see that there are problems it’s my only option, so I need to take it,” Bonfiglio says.
Jacobs says that’s what happened to her, and she felt trapped.
“It hasn't been easy at all, but I’m keeping the faith,” she tells me.
Jacobs has since found a new place to live that she said is much more suitable for her and her kid’s health and needs.
If you need free legal help you contact the Legal Aid Society of Eastern Virginia.
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