A Fatal Collision of Broken Systems
By: Indigo Null
After an unusually empty 9am docket, the hallway in front of Courtroom 2 began to fill up rapidly with tenants waiting for the 10:45am docket on Wednesday, May 17th. BRU Rent Court Watchers soon discovered that these tenants were all tenants of the Housing Authority of Baltimore City (HABC). Apparently, HABC had almost 200 cases scheduled at 10:45am seeking evictions of tenants in public housing.
HABC is supposed to ensure the most marginalized in Baltimore City are protected from houselessness and given equal access to safe, stable, affordable housing. HABC provides housing for Baltimore City tenants in a few different ways, and one of those ways is through public housing, which allows tenants to live in low-rent, HABC-run units that they can continue to live in as long as they qualify based on their income. Tenants from units like these were the ones facing eviction hearings that day.
Failure to pay rent cases filed by HABC are usually heard on specific days to ensure attorneys from Maryland Legal Aid Bureau, who are familiar with the special regulations associated with public housing programs (which are promulgated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development at the federal level) are present. On this particular day, neither Maryland Legal Aid Bureau nor any other attorneys that typically represent tenants in rent court on a pro bono basis were aware that this docket had been scheduled, meaning that tenants were attending their hearings without having spoken to an attorney at all, much less being represented by one.
Even before the tenants enter the courtroom, problems arose: The representative from one housing project told several tenants their cases would be dismissed, so they didn’t need to stay for their hearing - it’s generally in the tenant’s best interest to stay and make sure the case is actually dismissed, as an automatic judgment can be entered if the tenant is not present. The attorney for HABC, Melissa Frentz¹, yelled at multiple tenants and appeared to be extremely resistant to making any deals with tenants, refusing to agree to stays, postponements, or payment plans in most instances, even when tenants had clearly stated reasons for their payment issues beyond their control.
Judge Morse began the docket with her normal bare-minimum intro: She informed the tenants where to stand, told them she would ask whether they owed the amount listed, and explained that they could either agree they did, or ask for a trial. If they wanted trial, they would have to wait until the end of the docket. She didn’t explain what a trial entailed or that tenants could raise defenses to their cases, and failed to explain the judgment types including, most importantly, that not contesting an owed balance could lead to a consent judgment² tenants couldn’t appeal. She didn’t inform tenants that they had a right to a lawyer through Baltimore’s new right to counsel laws.
Judge Morse began calling cases, ordered in groups based on the housing project - O'Donnell Heights, Scattered Sites, Latrobe Homes, Westport, Poe Homes, and Mcculloh Homes. Cases are heard in Morse’s usual rapid-fire method: In some cases, Judge Morse moved the cases forward so fast that tenants didn’t even speak other than stating their name. Many tenants barely got to nod agreement that they owed money before she cut them off, handed down a consent judgment² and moved on to the next case. For each case, HABC’s attorney Frentz did most of the talking, with occasional input from the leasing manager of the specific project in question. Judge Morse did not ask for ledgers or other documentation in almost every case, even if what they said contradicted what a tenant said. When tenants moved to postpone or raise defenses, Attorney Frentz was extremely resistant, insisting that tenants should have handled these issues before coming to court and refusing to agree to any sort of compromise or postponement. Judge Morse denied almost all of the tenants' motions to postpone or dismiss.
In one of the last cases called, the tenant-defendant was a young black woman dressed in scrubs who allegedly owed five months back rent, according to HABC. Earlier, Judge Morse had called a recess before hearing the cases involving a trial, and told those tenants to go back into the hallway and try one more time to come to an agreement with HABC before she hears anything. In this tenant’s case, attorney Frentz had yelled at the tenant and berated her in the hallway, saying that if the tenant kept disagreeing with her then they wouldn’t discuss possible compromises or resolutions at all.The tenant had been attempting to advocate for herself, saying she’d had good reason to miss rent and it wasn’t her fault she owed a balance, but HABC’s fault. Ultimately, the communication had broken down entirely, leaving the tenant to fend for herself in her hearing.
The tenant presented her side to the court: She had lost her job in December and had applied to have her rent adjusted down several times, but her job had delayed giving her proof she had been laid off until January, and then gave her a letter with an incorrect termination date. At that point, the rental office told her she had to apply for unemployment and several other programs, and be denied, before she could apply for an adjustment. She did so, and was denied, and came back to the rental office several times throughout January and February to apply for a rent reduction, but was told the person handling that paperwork was not in and she’d have to return later. She brought proof of receiving SNAP benefits to try and show she had no income, and they said that didn’t count and she’d have to get a corrected letter and re-apply for benefits to be denied again before she could get a rental adjustment. She still hadn’t managed to get her adjustment when she was finally accepted into a work program in April and could start paying her rent again.
She felt she should not owe the balance for the months in between because her rent should have been adjusted down while she had no income, and the problem was through no fault of her own. Because she had been in constant communication with the leasing office, she assumed HABC knew she was trying to fix the situation, and had no idea she was going to be filed against until she received the notice of her hearing on Monday, May 15th - only two days before the hearing.
When the representative from HABC spoke, he claimed the tenant was getting income for some of those months, but didn't say how he knows that. He gave few details besides insisting the tenant owec the balance, and Judge Morse did not ask for any documentation proving what she owes, or even details on how they know she was allegedly employed. He brought up the fact that the tenant had begun receiving income again, implying that she should be able to pay her balance because of it. The tenant tried to respond and explain the situation again, but Frentz said she had time to handle these issues and HABC is not interested in anything other than moving forward with a judgment. Judge Morse then said she sees no proof the tenant was unemployed - the tenant had a piece of paper in her hand and started to say that she had proof, but Judge Morse interrupted her mid-sentence and, speaking over her to drown her out, ruled against her without giving the tenant a chance to present her evidence.
The docket ended, and BRU Rent Court Watchers found the tenant in the hall crying. She explained in detail how she’d been given the runaround by both her last job and the HABC office, and had been going back and forth with both since December. She said she knows HABC should have been able to see she had no income, because even though her old job still listed her as employed, she had no listed income for months, so it should have been obvious there was an error when they ran her social security number. Now, despite months of fighting, she has a judgment on her record, is still no closer to getting a rent adjustment, and is likely to be evicted within the next month.
¹ HABC Attorney Melissa Frentz has resigned from HABC as of Monday, May 21 2023.² A consent judgment is a type of judgment where a tenant doesn’t contest that they owe the money. If a tenant enters a consent judgment, they give up their right to an appeal.Tenants often mistakenly end up in consent judgments because they are unaware they have the right to raise defenses.*note: This story was published with the consent of the tenant and written in collaboration with her