Washington Post | Voices for Civil Justice

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Organization website

Primary geographic focus: District of Columbia, INTERNATIONAL, NATIONAL
Organization type(s): Media
Acronym or short name: WaPo

CONTENT FROM THIS SOURCE

Feature

Renters thought a CDC order protected them from eviction. Then landlords found loopholes.

Kyle Swenson
Washington Post
October 27, 2020
In the end, Glascoe was able to keep her home because the judge later determined that a local law shielded her from any eviction filing within six months of her previous case against her landlord. Her lease was automatically renewed.

News Story

Millions of Americans are heading into the holidays unemployed and over $5,000 behind on rent

Heather Long
Washington Post
December 7, 2020
Economists warn many unemployed families won’t be able to pay rent and utilities without more stimulus aid from Congress

News Story

Struggling renters face avalanche of evictions without federal aid

Jonathan O’Connell, Anu Narayanswamy
Washington Post
December 25, 2020
Landlords filed hundreds of thousands of eviction notices during the pandemic. The federal eviction ban expires Dec. 31.

Feature , News Story

Trying to enjoy the holidays with eviction looming in the new year

Washington Post
December 25, 2020

Column

The coronavirus took her mother. Now this woman, like millions of others, fears she’ll be evicted.

Joe Davidson
Washington Post
December 11, 2020

Op-Ed

The eviction crisis has begun. It will get so much worse.

Anne Kat Alexander, Alieza Durana
Washington Post
September 23, 2020
Between the end of the Cares Act and a CDC moratorium, landlords pounced.

News Story

Thousands have been evicted in the pandemic. Housing experts say Trump’s new ban is a temporary fix.

Annie Gowan
Washington Post
September 3, 2020

News Story

Virginia, Ikea give $4M to boost Legal Aid services for residents facing eviction

Laura Vozzella
Washington Post
August 31, 2020

News Story

2020 is the summer of booming home sales — and evictions

Heather Long
Washington Post
July 27, 2020

News Story

Facing eviction as millions shelter in place

Jessica Contrera
Washington Post
March 22, 2020
As millions of Americans are being told to stay inside their homes and eviction moratoriums are enacted across the country, tenants - often already struggling under hardships related to the COVID-19 pandemic - are still receiving eviction notices from their landlords. This story by Jessica Contrera of the Washington Post spotlights some of the intersections of the COVID-19 pandemic with the affordable housing crisis, health care, low wages and the gig economy.

News Story

Legal funding for immigrants in detention: A debate that divided this wealthy Md. suburb returns

Rebecca Tan
Washington Post
August 29, 2019
Local governments across the Washington area are expanding legal defense funds for immigrants facing deportation, reviving a debate that has divided advocates, officials and residents in Maryland’s largest jurisdiction.

Editorial

Providing aid to people facing deportation is admirable — but not for felons

Washington Post
August 20, 2019
A GROWING number of localities with burgeoning communities of immigrants are devoting public funds to provide legal aid to those undocumented residents who face deportation.

News Story

U.S. defends secretive Mississippi ICE raids as local, state officials decry effect on children

Nick Miroff
Washington Post
August 8, 2019
Amelia McGowan, an attorney for the Mississippi Center for Justice, said she believes the state was targeted because “there is very little legal support” for immigrant communities there.

Letter to Editor

We need more lawyers

Martha Bergmark
Washington Post
June 16, 2019
Perhaps corporations need fewer legal services, but meanwhile, most Americans — and especially those struggling to make ends meet — can’t get the legal help they need to address serious life challenges.

News Story

Trump administration cancels English classes, soccer, legal aid for unaccompanied child migrants in U.S. shelters

Maria Sacchetti
Washington Post
June 5, 2019
The Trump administration is canceling English classes, recreational programs and legal aid for unaccompanied minors staying in federal migrant shelters nationwide, saying the immigration influx at the southern border has created critical budget pressures.

News Story

Virginia’s largest county could be next to help undocumented immigrants fight deportation

Antonio Olivo
Washington Post
April 10, 2019
Fairfax County is considering creating a taxpayer-funded legal defense fund for immigrants caught in deportation proceedings, part of a growing effort by local governments to counter the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

News Story

Fact-checking the Trump administration’s immigration fact sheet

Salvador Rizzo
Washington Post
May 10, 2019
“Having a lawyer makes a huge difference across the immigration court system,” Reichlin-Melnick wrote in a Twitter thread analyzing the “myths vs. facts” document.

News Story

Fairfax moves toward more affordable housing, pay raises with new budget

Antonio Olivo
Washington Post
April 30, 2019
But they passionately debated one of the smaller spending decisions: a $200,000 legal-aid pilot program to help immigrants facing deportation proceedings.

News Story

Virginia’s largest county could be next to help undocumented immigrants fight deportation

Antonio Olivo
Washington Post
April 10, 2019
“These are truly frightening times,” said Nicholas Marritz, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Justice Center, which estimates that 41,000 people in Virginia are facing deportation. “As an attorney, I’ve seen firsthand the difference that representation can make in a person’s life.”

Column

Republicans’ deregulation is hurting consumers. A new bill from Democrats could help.

Catherine Rampell
Washington Post
March 4, 2019
At exactly the same time that Republicans have been rolling back supposedly burdensome regulations, they have also been making it harder for downstream victims to seek redress.

News Story

ITT Tech students score victory in bankruptcy settlement

Danielle Douglas-Gabriel
Washington Post
November 28, 2018
On Wednesday, a federal judge gave final approval to a settlement that will erase nearly $600 million that 750,000 students owed ITT Technical Institute.

Column

Are work requirements inherently, irredeemably flawed?

Catherine Rampell
Washington Post
November 21, 2018
Arkansas’s first-in-the-country, first-in-history Medicaid work requirements have been backfiring. Nonetheless, 13 other states are pursuing similar policies.

Op-Ed

We have a right to counsel in criminal cases. Why not in evictions?

Amanda Scott
Washington Post
November 6, 2018
Congress and state lawmakers should act to pass legislation to ensure all families have their day in court.

Feature

The careful and often subtle social activism of Aaron Rodgers, NFL’s biggest superstar

Adam Kilgore
Washington Post
November 1, 2018
Rodgers has donated time and money to causes typical and atypical of a superstar quarterback’s philanthropy.

News Story

When just being near alcohol lands you in jail

Christie Thompson
Washington Post
September 7, 2018
Virginia advocates and public defenders have been fighting the law for years, saying it targets homeless people suffering from alcoholism and jails them without full due process.

News Story

D.C. has legal aid for immigrants, but the city doesn’t use tax dollars to help undocumented ones that are detained

Marissa J. Lang, Fenit Nirappil
Washington Post
August 26, 2018
Unlike other cities that have created immigrant defense funds since Trump took office, Washington does not use tax dollars to help undocumented adults once they are detained by federal authorities and face deportation.

News Story

The chaotic effort to reunite immigrant parents with their separated kids

Kevin Sieff
Washington Post
June 21, 2018
Even though the Trump administration has halted its policy of separating illegal border crossers from their children, many of the over 2,300 youths removed from migrant parents since May 5 remain in shelters and foster homes across the country.

Op-Ed

Sessions holds safety beyond the grasp of abuse victims

Laurie Bell Cooper
Washington Post
June 17, 2018
Instead, the U.S. government has revoked the refuge once offered to women who dared to demand that their worth be recognized.

News Story

More than 7 million people may have lost driver’s licenses because of traffic debt

Justin Wm. Moyer
Washington Post
May 19, 2018
The total number nationwide could be much higher based on the population of states that did not or could not provide data.

News Story

Consumer lawyers want to end Education Department’s partial student debt relief plan

Danielle Douglas-Gabriel
Washington Post
March 19, 2018
The Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard University, a legal services clinic, has asked a federal judge to stop the Education Department from using earnings data to grant only partial student loan forgiveness to defrauded borrowers.

Op-Ed

What happens when you can’t afford to go bankrupt

Paul Kiel
Washington Post
March 2, 2018
It happens every tax season. With many more people suddenly able to pay a lawyer, the number of bankruptcy filings jumps way up in March, stays high in April, then declines.

News Story

After ‘Me Too,’ women want justice. Lawyers have bad news for them.

Jessica Contrera
Washington Post
February 4, 2018
Despite the torrent of attention being paid to sexual harassment and discrimination, the legal system in place to respond to related claims has not changed. Many have been inspired to seek legal action only to learn that it’s probably too late to file a lawsuit.

News Story

Report: 1 in 6 Va. drivers have suspended licenses partly due to unpaid court debt

Justin Wm. Moyer
Washington Post
January 24, 2018
About one in six Virginia drivers has a suspended license partly because of an inability to pay court debt, according to a study from an advocacy group released Wednesday.

Feature

They were sexually harassed at work. They reported it. Here’s what happened.

Washington Post
November 15, 2017
Through news reports, advocacy organizations and attorneys, The Washington Post identified eight people who have reported harassment in the workplace. They include an assembly-line worker. A prison guard. A nurse.

News Story

Millions of drivers lost their licenses for failing to pay court fees, study finds

Justin Wm. Moyer
Washington Post
September 26, 2017
The report says that 43 states and the District suspend driver’s licenses because of unpaid fines and fees, trapping people in a “vicious court debt cycle.”

Op-Ed

Betsy DeVos took away my moment of justice

Laura Dunn
Washington Post
September 11, 2017
DeVos has positioned herself as the patron saint of those who claim, preposterously, that students being falsely accused of rape is just as prevalent and just as important a problem as students being raped.

News Story

Scammers using robo-calls about insurance to fleece Hurricane Harvey survivors

Joel Achenbach
Washington Post
August 31, 2017
The robo-calls tell people that their premiums are past due and that they must send money immediately or else have their flood insurance canceled.

News Story

Lawsuit alleges widespread problems in District-run food stamp program

Ann E. Marimow
Washington Post
August 28, 2017
Low-income D.C. residents are not getting the help they need to buy groceries because of widespread problems with the District’s food stamp program, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court on Monday.

News Story

Where Harvey is hitting hardest, 80 percent lack flood insurance

Heather Long
Washington Post
August 29, 2017
Everyone else who loses their home to flooding will be dependent on private charity and government aid, especially grants from Federal Emergency Management Agency.

News Story

More seniors are taking loans against their homes — and it’s costing them

Jenifer McKim
Washington Post
August 25, 2017
Across the nation, an increasing number of seniors are facing foreclosure after taking out reverse mortgages, either because they fell behind on property charges or failed to meet other requirements of the complex mortgage loans.

Column

The threat Trump poses that gets almost no attention

Catherine Rampell
Washington Post
July 3, 2017
Low-income families, whether in red-state America or blue, turn out to need a lot of legal help.

Letter to Editor

Six of the worst cuts in Trump’s budget

Deborah Rhode
Washington Post
May 26, 2017
Access to justice.

News Story

Report faults D.C.’s assessment of ‘rapid rehousing’ program

Paul Duggan
Washington Post
May 6, 2017
The D.C. Department of Human Services contends that the program has an 85 percent success rate, but a new report from the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless calls that figure “an illusion.”

News Story

D.C. Council to consider free legal help for poor residents in housing cases

Jasper Scherer
Washington Post
October 14, 2016
The bill would create a funding stream for the D.C. Bar Foundation, the nonprofit group that provides most legal aid to D.C. residents involved in civil cases.

News Story

‘DMV is not responsible’: Va. denies claim it unfairly suspends driver’s licenses

Justin Wm. Moyer
Washington Post
October 5, 2016
After a class-action lawsuit claimed Virginia suspends the driver’s licenses of those too poor to pay fines and court costs in an “unconstitutional scheme,” the state replied Monday, saying the suit raised no legitimate complaint.

News Story

Public-interest groups are calling on Education Dept. to track racial disparities in student lending

Danielle Douglas-Gabriel
Washington Post
September 15, 2016
A coalition of 40 civil rights, legal-aid and public-interest groups is urging the Education Department to track and monitor the effect of student loans on people of color, who are shouldering the burden of education debt.

Editorial

D.C. is evicting tenants for no good reason

Washington Post
September 8, 2016
That lawyers for the city didn’t take the time to differentiate between the two is concerning and must be addressed by city officials.

News Story

‘A lot of our plaintiffs have died waiting to get out of the nursing home’

Tara Bahrampour
Washington Post
September 4, 2016
Several hundred nursing home residents are plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit alleging that the District has failed to comply with a federal mandate to move eligible and interested Medicaid recipients out of nursing homes.

Feature

As the nation’s capital booms, poor tenants face eviction over as little as $25

Terrence McCoy
Washington Post
August 8, 2016
Brookland Manor’s proposed eviction of Brittany Gray over an amount many Washingtonians spend on a weekday lunch illustrates the ongoing drama of gentrification in a city and a nation still coming to terms with its consequences.

News Story

Virginia suspends driver’s licenses in ‘unconstitutional scheme,’ class action says

Justin Wm. Moyer
Washington Post
July 13, 2016
A suit filed July 6 against the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles alleges the DMV indefinitely suspends driver’s licenses of those too poor to pay fines and court costs in an “unconstitutional scheme.”

Op-Ed

One reason so many veterans are homeless? They can’t afford lawyers.

Martha Bergmark, Ellen Lawton
Washington Post
July 8, 2016
New research shows that vets are losing their homes and missing out on crucial benefits because they lack legal aid. Medical-legal partnerships and other civil legal-aid interventions for veterans show the promise of a holistic approach to veterans care.

News Story

Report: Virginia’s black students three times as likely as whites to face suspension

Moriah Balingit
Washington Post
May 24, 2016
Black students in Virginia’s schools were three times as likely as white students to be suspended last year, according to a new report on school punishments.

News Story

Undocumented Latinos and their families sue after evictions

Patricia Sullivan
Washington Post
May 23, 2016
Four Latino families being evicted from a mobile-home park because at least one family member is undocumented and doesn’t have a Social Security number filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Monday that advocates said could set a national precedent in fair-housing law.

News Story

Being poor in Washington means worrying about housing, survey finds

Perry Stein
Washington Post
April 4, 2016
Mullen and the other co-authors of a report released Monday set out to paint a more nuanced portrait of what it means to be poor in the nation’s capital — by directly asking poor residents themselves.

News Story

The confounding story of the disabled veterans who went weeks in winter without heat — and then were evicted

Terrence McCoy
Washington Post
February 13, 2016
The downside to the recent push to end veterans homelessness. It appears to have attracted some landlords who have provided veterans with substandard housing and questionably evicted them back into homelessness.

News Story

Without Social Security numbers, illegal immigrants face eviction

Antonio Olivo
Washington Post
February 10, 2016
Lawyers are fighting the eviction proceedings, arguing that Waples Mobile Home Park is discriminating against the residents.

Op-Ed

Too many lawyers? Not in D.C.

Jane H. Aiken, William M. Treanor
Washington Post
November 27, 2015
“Low-bono” legal services, where lawyers charge affordable fees to work for those who can’t afford the District’s average rate of $250 per hour but who make a little too much to qualify for legal aid, are gaining momentum.

Op-Ed