Supreme Courts in Arizona and Utah Approve i4J’s Housing Stability Legal Advocate Certification Program
Training begins soon for this new type of civil legal service provider, which will support housing stability for low-income tenants and families.
Innovation for Justice (i4J), a social justice innovation lab housed in the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law and the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business, has received approval from the Supreme Courts in Arizona and Utah to implement a new legal service model that aims to keep more low-income families in their homes. i4J’s new Housing Stability Legal Advocate (HSLA) Initiative will train and empower licensed advocates to provide limited-scope legal advice and services to tenants who are facing housing instability.
Housing instability disproportionately impacts lower-income community members, the vast majority of whom are renters. Of the 44.1 million renter households in the U.S 11.0 million have extremely low incomes – that is, incomes at or below either the federal poverty guideline or 30 percent of the area median income, whichever is higher. For every 100 extremely lower-income renter households in Arizona and Utah, there are approximately 30 affordable rental housing units available. For many lower-income community members, housing is simply unaffordable; more than 70 percent of extremely low-income renters are paying more than half of their income on rent. These households may be one emergency or unexpected expense away from eviction, displacement, and homelessness, and many tenants confronted with an inability to pay rent lack the resources and capacity required to navigate the complex social and legal services needed to maintain housing stability.
“The goal of the HSLA Initiative is to prevent housing problems from becoming legal problems by creating opportunities for low-income renters to receive legal help from the experienced community-based advocates that they trust,” said i4J Director Stacy Rupprecht Jane. “92 percent of low-income Americans’ civil legal needs go unmet, so the families who will benefit from the HSLA Initiative would not receive legal assistance if not for this new legal service model. This is a community-engaged effort, i4J has worked with individuals and organizations in Arizona and Utah to understand the unmet need and build a new service model that meets tenants where they are at.”
i4J designs, builds and tests disruptive solutions to the justice gap. i4J worked with over 160 diverse stakeholders in Arizona and Utah for more than a year to explore how to best leverage regulatory reform to advance legal empowerment for underrepresented communities experiencing housing instability. The result was the design of the HSLA Initiative, which will provide a free, specialized training course to experienced staff at community-based organizations who already work with people experiencing housing instability. After passing the course, HSLAs will be able to embed free, trauma-informed, limited-scope legal advice about housing-related legal issues into the social services they already provide.
With Arizona Supreme Court Administrative Order 2023-19 issued in January and Supreme Court of Utah Standing Order No. 16 published in March, i4J is moving forward with the HSLA Initiative. The HSLA Initiative will initially involve a cohort of 20 individuals in each state. Funding in Arizona is provided by the Garcia Family Foundation, Vitalyst Health, the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust, and Maricopa County.
“Given the recent, dramatic increase in rental rates in Arizona, the lack of affordable housing, the current level of evictions and the general unavailability of legal support for tenants, we applaud i4J and the Arizona and Utah Supreme Courts for their innovative approach on a currently pressing issue,” said Jon Ehlinger, President of the Garcia Family Foundation. “We are particularly excited about the level of community outreach and engagement they used in developing this approach and the urgency with which the work will move forward.”
Arizona is already recruiting participants. Utah recruitment will begin after the project secures funding for a Utah launch. Organizations interested in participating in the HSLA Initiative training should reach out to info@innovation4justice.org. i4J will hire HSLA project leads for both states. Applicants interested in i4J’s project lead positions in Arizona can apply now.
“This is a totally new service model for both states, and the first to be authorized in two jurisdictions,” said Cayley Balser, i4J’s Community-Engaged Research Operations Lead who co-led the HSLA Initiative. “It has the potential to change the delivery of legal services nationwide by creating a new, sustainable tier of civil legal service providers within social service communities.”
Studies have shown that tenants who receive legal services are more likely to experience successful outcomes than those who go without, but the access to justice gap in this country means that 92% of low-income Americans don’t receive the civil legal help they need. While unauthorized practice of law (UPL) restrictions in most states mean that lawyers alone can provide these types of legal services, Arizona and Utah are leading the way when it comes to UPL regulatory reform.
“Vitalyst is pleased to join other philanthropic partners in supporting the Housing Stability Legal Advocate (HSLA) certification program. It takes a collective effort to serve Arizona’s most vulnerable groups and as the housing supply continues to tighten for so many, we need to ensure that evictions do not create legal barriers for people looking for basic housing. The HSLA program will allow community members to receive the legal help they need from trusted advocates,” said Suzanne Pfister, President and CEO, Vitalyst Health Foundation.
“Keeping people in their homes results in better outcomes for the tenants and their families, and avoiding evictions also saves communities the downstream costs of eviction-related social services,” said Jane. “The i4J team is pleased to have the opportunity to co-create new legal service models that will make a difference to lives and communities in both Arizona and Utah.”
The HSLA Initiative joins the Licensed Legal Advocate Initiative and the Medical Debt Legal Advocate Initiative to become i4J’s third project advancing access to justice for low-income communities through reform of UPL restrictions. Outcomes from these projects are positioned to shape a national conversation supporting scalable and effective community-based solutions for common civil justice problems.