As temperatures get warmer, more people are coming into the Legal Clinics at the Brian Coyle Center and Waite House. Good news for them, Mid Minnesota Legal Aid (“MMLA”) partners with PUC to host in-person legal clinics at Brian Coyle and Waite House to provide a variety of free legal services to low-income and elderly clients.

In this May edition of our report to PUC check out a note about where to seek assistance for child support, a story and lesson about what to do when you are charged too much for rent, and the clinic’s statistics from April!

Brian Coyle Center Legal Clinic

Legal Aid’s Legal Clinic at the Brian Coyle Center (420 15th Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55454) offers nearly every legal service that Mid Minnesota Legal Aid offers. See a list of our services below. Anecdotally, the most common legal issues on the “General Civil” days (M – Wed) have been Section 8 issues, public benefit overpayments and denials, and questions about child support and child custody modifications. For the most part, the Legal Clinic at BCC does not provide legal representation for child support cases. The first place to look for child support assistance (in Hennepin County) is your child support worker or at the child support agency ([email protected] | 612-348-3600).

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday 9 AM – 3 PM (General Civil)

• Guardianship
• Divorce
• Custody
• Evictions
• Public Benefits
• Consumer Issues
• Criminal Expungement
• Eviction Expungement
• Damaged/Unsafe Housing
• Section 8 Issues
• Lost Security Deposits

Thursday 9 AM – 3 PM (Immigration)

• Naturalization
• Derivative Citizenship
• U/T Visa
• Green Cards
• Adjustment of Status
• VAWA

Waite House Legal Clinic

MMLA’s immigration legal clinic at Waite House (2323 11th Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55404) provides brief services and advice for immigration matters including: pro se asylum applications, pro se work card applications, and brief advice and consultations. It is open every Monday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Appointments can be made with the front desk staff at Waite House. Walk-ins are welcome, but they are not guaranteed to be seen—appointments are strongly preferred. All staff at the Waite House Legal Clinic speak Spanish and English.

A Story and a Lesson

An older father who lives with his college-age children came into the clinic because of issues with his landlord and his public housing subsidy. He had recently reported his income to the public housing administrator. When they calculated the portion of the rent he had to pay for, something was wrong. The administrator sent him three different papers all saying that his portion of the rent was a different amount. One of the papers said this client’s portion of the rent was $300 less than it had been in the past. Believing this was the accurate one, the client started to pay less in rent. The landlord disagreed and said our client was not paying his rent. This led to the tenant owing thousands, and the landlord filed an eviction.

The father came to the Brian Coyle Center Legal Clinic and told us about his situation. We were able to secure rental assistance funds from Hennepin County and the eviction was dismissed. We advised the client to keep paying the amount the landlord says is the correct rental amount until he could clarify with the housing administrator how much he actually should pay in rent each month. He is in the process of getting that solved, while still living in his home with his two children.

If you have any kind of subsidized housing that requires you to report your income you may have been through a similar situation. When you believe your portion of the rent should be lower than it is, it is best to continue paying the higher amount. Then work with the subsidized housing administrator to re-calculate your portion of the rent. This way you will not face an eviction case. If you are evicted you will have a much harder time getting new housing, especially subsidized housing.

If you get a notice from your landlord that they are going to evict you, please come to the Brian Coyle Center on Mondays – Wednesdays from 9 am – 3 pm. The sooner you come the more likely we can help you stay in your home!

A Look at the Numbers

In April the Brian Coyle Center Legal Clinic opened 30 new cases and closed 33 cases. During that same time, Waite House opened 23 new cases and closed 16 cases! Waite House saw a significant increase in opened and closed cases. This may be a sign people feel safer to go out of their homes and into the community. Or maybe its just the warmer weather. Either way, we will continue to monitor these trends.

Here are some graphs with each clinic’s monthly new and closed cases. New cases opened in the month are in blue. Cases closed in the month are in orange.