Talk Justice, an LSC Podcast: Moving from Conflict to Collaboration to Prevent Evictions
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Carl Rauscher
Director of Communications and Media Relations
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WASHINGTON– Experts discuss improving housing stability through collaboration on the latest episode of LSC's “Talk Justice” podcast, released today. LSC President Ron Flagg hosts the conversation with Ama Romaine, Executive Vice President and General Counsel at Progress Residential, and Neil Steinkamp, Managing Director at Stout. This panel discussion was recorded at LSC’s April 9 Access to Justice forum.
Landlords and legal aid are essential partners, Flagg explained. He said that it is time to reimagine the conflict-based system that has not served us well in favor of more collaboration between landlords and legal aid. LSC recently released a research brief on this topic, “Beyond Eviction: Landlords as Essential Partners in Housing Stability.”
The pandemic and eviction moratoria, plus the subsequent spike in evictions once moratoria were lifted, has put a spotlight on housing instability. Romaine said that this moment is the time to “press pause” and figure out what the system should look like in our “new world.”
She emphasized that everyone on all sides wants the same thing: people in stable housing. Evictions uproot families, and when homes sit empty, landlords lose money.
“We have to think about how we can get in front of the eviction filing and how we can get people back to stable ground sooner, so that we can get money flowing again and that people are just stable,” Romaine said. “When housing is unstable, the impacts are significant.”
Steinkamp has worked across the country on eviction and housing issues. He explained that many landlords have told him that they try to avoid filing evictions because court is costly, time-consuming and does not often recover lost rent payments. But, there are also no better options.
“There's a consistency in the message that we hear from landlords all over the country that we just need a better system and that the system needs to be outside the court system,” Steinkamp said. “This shouldn’t be a ‘how can we better respond to eviction?’ question, but ‘how can we avoid eviction filings in the first place?’”
Talk Justice episodes are available online and on Spotify, YouTube, Apple and other popular podcast apps. The podcast is sponsored by LSC’s Leaders Council.