Legal Clinics Help Poor Keep a Roof Overhead

As neighborhoods in the District are transformed by gentrification, and the supply of affordable housing shrinks, the pressure on the poor builds, and, with it, the prospect of unwanted legal confrontation.

"Because of what's happening in the city, there are more people in desperate circumstances who are being evicted," said Ann Marie Staudenmaier, a staff lawyer for the Legal Clinic for the Homeless.

Being put out of one's home can be the beginning of a dangerous spiral downward, Staudenmaier said. That's why her organization doesn't help only people who are already homeless.

"We represent a lot of people who are not homeless, [but] who are at risk of homelessness," she said.

Erica Bermudo is one of those people.

She doesn't look bedraggled, like many of the people at the food center, which is housed in the First Trinity Lutheran Church on Fourth Street NW. She has a cellphone. She is a college graduate. She has a résumé.

But she's in trouble, she tells Staudenmaier and Luke W. Reynolds, a government lawyer who volunteers at the clinic. It started when she was a student at Maryland and began spending recklessly, maxing out two credit cards. She says that her bipolar disorder clouded her judgment, but that she is taking Zyprexa and that her condition is under control.

Laying out a pile of credit card statements and dunning notices, she says that even with her mother helping her pay her rent, she can't afford even the minimum payments being demanded by her creditors.

"I don't have the means," she said.

With no job, her only income is $257 a month in government assistance. She wants to file for bankruptcy, so that the calls and notices will stop. But filing for bankruptcy will also scar her credit history and perhaps make it harder for her down the road, when she needs a loan with a good interest rate.

"Bankruptcy is a pretty drastic option that we try to avoid," Staudenmaier tells Bermudo. "It might be better not to go that route yet."

Instead, Staudenmaier tells her, a lawyer can contact her creditors and explain the situation.

"Are they going to keep calling me," Bermudo asked, a trace of panic in her voice.

"That," Staudenmaier replied, "is hopefully what we can help you with."