First volunteer day today. This is my community service project for my ethics class. I volunteer at the Housing Justice Project, which assists low income people who have landlord/tennant issues and the like.

It is a depressing field of work. I don't think I shall stick with it after this quarter. Even the attorney supervising me said she sometimes felt discouraged by what happens in that office because there are too many cases where there is nothing we can do but tell the client they'd best have some moving boxes and some friends to help them move out.

In today's episode, I sat in the courtroom for the morning session as I'd never seen eviction proceedings and the attorney thought it would be good for me to view them. In one case, the court clerk told the gentleman at the counter that he might want to consult with the HJP (that's us!) so I followed him out of court and found him lost in the hallway, so I took him to the office. Turns out he had been served at the beginning of December and an attorney friend told him he'd help him out after the holidays. In Washington, you get 20 days to respond. The twenty days ended 12/26, and his friend wasn't back from holiday yet. Looks like this poor man and his family will be evicted tonight.

After he left, Allison (the attorney at HJP) said that this illustrated one of the frustrating things about the job: if he had come in sooner, we could have helped him. Because he waited until the last day of the eviction notice, there's nothing we can do and it's all according to the rules so there's not much he can do either. I don't know if I'd want a full-time job where there are so many instances that you cannot help the client. Allison said that almost every single case goes against the tennant; a depressing thought.

First volunteer day today. This is my community service project for my ethics class. I volunteer at the Housing Justice Project, which assists low income people who have landlord/tennant issues and the like.

It is a depressing field of work. I don't think I shall stick with it after this quarter. Even the attorney supervising me said she sometimes felt discouraged by what happens in that office because there are too many cases where there is nothing we can do but tell the client they'd best have some moving boxes and some friends to help them move out.

In today's episode, I sat in the courtroom for the morning session as I'd never seen eviction proceedings and the attorney thought it would be good for me to view them. In one case, the court clerk told the gentleman at the counter that he might want to consult with the HJP (that's us!) so I followed him out of court and found him lost in the hallway, so I took him to the office. Turns out he had been served at the beginning of December and an attorney friend told him he'd help him out after the holidays. In Washington, you get 20 days to respond. The twenty days ended 12/26, and his friend wasn't back from holiday yet. Looks like this poor man and his family will be evicted tonight.

After he left, Allison (the attorney at HJP) said that this illustrated one of the frustrating things about the job: if he had come in sooner, we could have helped him. Because he waited until the last day of the eviction notice, there's nothing we can do and it's all according to the rules so there's not much he can do either. I don't know if I'd want a full-time job where there are so many instances that you cannot help the client. Allison said that almost every single case goes against the tennant; a depressing thought.