Eric Dinnocenzo - The Tenant Lawyer Read Free Page B

months that included a waiver of the back rent. If the landlord brought a case based on tenant misconduct, I would assert a general denial of the allegations. The case often settled with a probationary agreement allowing the tenant to stay in the apartment, but authorizing a quick eviction if the misconduct continued. Every once in a while a case would go to trial.
    Over time I came to see myself as someone who was simply performing damage control, rather than working to improve housing conditions in Worcester. From a professional standpoint, I felt that I wasn’t fully developing my legal skills. In eviction cases there were generally no complex issues and discovery was limited with no depositions. Trials were conducted without a jury, were brief in duration, and the lawyers did not deliver opening or closing statements. Sure, I got to conduct more trials than my peers at large law firms, but they were constricted trials. Altogether, I felt I was more or less running in place and not moving forward in my career.
    The next thing I did, after talking to Anna, was go over to Maria Roman. Although I had told her to dress nicely for court, she was wearing skin-tight jeans that were fairly provocative. Oh well, I thought, nothing I can do about it now.
    “So what’s going to happen now?” she asked me.
    “We go to mediation. Either the case will settle or we’ll have to go to trial.”
    Like Anna, Maria was being evicted from George Washington, but her case was based on different grounds—that her boyfriend, Jose, resided with her as an unauthorized occupant. At my request, Jose had accompanied her to court in the event the case went to trial so that he could testify that he lived at another address, which was the story that he and Maria had all along insisted was the truth. The problem, however, was that he had no proof that he lived elsewhere.
    Public housing authorities routinely moved to evict tenants who they believed had unauthorized occupants living in their apartments. There were three policy-based reasons for this. First, a tenant with an unauthorized occupant could be bilking the program, because public housing rents were calculated based on household income. For instance, if Jose lived with Maria and he earned a good salary, enabling them to afford a market-rate apartment, she would be depriving low-income people who really needed public housing. Second, before they were given public housing, applicants were subjected to a screening process that included a criminal record check. Obviously, an unauthorized occupant evades this requirement. The final reason was plain old social engineering. The government wanted to prevent female public housing tenants from sleeping with their boyfriends and having out-of-wedlock births which would entitle them to more public benefits.
    Many tenants I represented in the past failed to understand that they could be evicted for having their boyfriends live with them in public housing. They thought that whatever went on inside the four walls of their apartment was their own business.
    “What would be a good result,” I advised Maria, “is if you could get an agreement where you won’t have Jose stay overnight anymore for the next six months or so—it’s called a probationary agreement—and if you comply with the agreement during that time period, your case will be dismissed. Jose could start visiting you overnight in accordance with the terms of your lease, which means up to twenty-one nights a year—”
    “Twenty-one nights a year?” Jose said incredulously.
    “Twenty-one? That’s ridiculous,” Maria chimed in.
    “Unfortunately, that’s the rule in public housing,” I responded. “It’s in your lease.” I had previously explained this to her in detail in a meeting at my office.
    “That’s unfair,” Maria snapped. “Other people don’t have that rule.”
    “I agree, it is unfair,” I said, “but you give up certain rights when you live in public housing.