LCYC is partnering with the King County Bar Association’s Housing Justice Project (HJP) on a new initiative to prevent evictions among young adults through the Young Adult Eviction Prevention Program!
New Program and Services
The Young Adult Eviction Prevention Program combines the expertise and community partnerships of LCYC and HJP to better connect with and serve young adults in King County, addressing legal issues to prevent eviction. Young adults may access legal services early on, before signing a lease, to understand their legal rights and general housing law. Young adults can also access legal services to engage in landlord-tenant mediation or negotiation, to respond to threats of or filings for eviction, inhabitable living conditions, or other lease or landlord duty violations. The LCYC-HJP partnership will also help young people address other civil legal aid matters impacting their housing stability such as orders of protection, public benefits, restitution, or court fees.
Partnering Equal Justice Works Fellows
HJP is a homelessness prevention program that serves low-income residents in King County. The passionate team of staff and volunteer attorneys at HJP use their expertise in housing and eviction law to provide legal services. In August 2020, Vallen Solomon joined HJP as an Equal Justice Works Fellow. Through his fellowship, Vallen is carrying out a project to provide legal advocacy that focuses on young adults experiencing or exiting systems of care into homelessness, through holistic, youth-centered services.
LCYC has extensive experience representing and engaging youth and young adults in crisis, providing free civil legal services to those experiencing or at risk of homelessness in partnerships with schools, shelters, and other community service providers and partners. In September 2019, Candice Dundy joined the LCYC team as an Equal Justice Works fellow with a project to learn from youth and young adults of color how the accessibility and cultural competency of civil legal aid may be improved.
The two Equal Justice Works Fellows are collaboratively working with the LCYC and HJP teams to carry out their projects.
Learn More
The Young Adult Eviction Prevention Program came about through intentional collaborative planning, data analysis, and the incorporation of young adult and service provider feedback into legal needs and program design.
Many thanks to the Raikes Foundation for the partnership grant that allowed HJP and LCYC to invest time and resources to ascertain whether or how we could best merge our unique areas of expertise, service delivery models, and connections to improve legal services for young adults and prevent homelessness.
Read more about HJP and LCYC’s initial research, focus groups, and design work here.
Learn more about how we can help and how to access or refer a young person to services here.