In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Holahan 57 Susan Holahan Legal Aid Client with beautiful hands said as she sat down, "I don't know how the shit I got me into such a mess like this. I got to get me some money somewhere down the line." I told client I'm a legal worker, taking her down to City because they have to keep her going while she's off State. As we drove, client said living too high got her in trouble. She worked two months and didn't tell State. What was worse, they found out she signed to buy a house with the father of her first three kids. Someone told State, and State threatened to discontinue her—the father in the house could support the kids, and what about all the money she got when the house was sold last year? But the father was gone, back down South. Before he left he sold the house to his mother for $1. State discontinued client anyway at the first hearing, but she and the kids kept on. The baby wanted a bottle, didnt' understand she was supposed to discontinue. We stopped on office time for milk, on the way to City. Client kept baby bundled in dress and sweater and heavy quilted jacket, even inside. Client and baby struggled in the hard, dirty chairs chained down in the waiting room at City while the front desk told me the supervisor said he had given client appointment for next week, don't bother him. Then the supervisor said he couldn't do a thing, with his supervisor out to lunch. Look at the statute, I said to the supervisor, the only person in the huge room with a partition around his desk. Statute says "shall." You have to give her something. I went on and on about the difference between City and State, the regs, the code, policy. "These people make so many problems for themselves," he said. He took the papers inside finally, came out beaming. "We won!" I collected client and baby. In another two hours we were out in the wet afternoon with the food voucher. The worker fixed it so client had to go all the way to Big Buy instead of Sam's Corner Market. More economical, he said, you must know someone with a car. Your basic emergency eviction has kids, like the client whose landlord came around to her place first, picked up the plastic horseshoes the kids were using and threw them in the street. Then he went to where client 58 the minnesota review works, in the basement of the veterans' hospital, and got her supervisor to call her in. The landlord and the supervisor and the personnel manager told client she'd be fired as well as evicted if she didn't keep agreement they had to sign to pay something on the back rent every week. Client says she doesn't know why the landlord wanted her out of the place. Same roaches, same broken back stairs, same useless stove as all the other apartments in the neighborhood. Six kids of her own, plus the five-month-old baby of her oldest daughter. The lawyers say defending an eviction gives the client a few rent-free months to find another place and save up the deposit. When happy client calls to say she's found a new place, and gives address, it's the same one another eviction client finally left last month. There's a big circle of these places around here, all with holes in the bathroom ceiling over the broken toilet. Sit in Juvenile Court one morning a week, they said, so you'll know how it goes before we start taking kids. Just watch. The judge there worked the kids over with questions: You didn't do this, did you? You know it's wrong to steal, don't you? and wrong to go where you don't belong? You help your mother around the house, don't you? and you come in at night when she tells you, don't you? You don't want to go to the special school, do you? A slight kid...

pdf

Share