Affordable housing has been a highly discussed topic in Las Cruces for some time, but questions have been raised by local lawyers and nonprofits about the number of people being taken to court for evictions. Since August of 2021, at least 115 people who lived in affordable housing properties owned by the Mesilla Valley Public Housing Authority have been taken to court, but people like Winter Torres, the founder of the New Mexico Eviction Prevention and Diversion Program, said there are ways that evictions could be limited.
“When we are working with folks who are vulnerable or in need, it takes real human beings to do outreach and play a mid-role between the landlords and the tenants,” Torres said. “Those can be highly successful but they don't get funded often.”
Once these evictions take place, the former tenants face a new set of issues. Wait lists for assistance through the housing authority are anywhere from two to six years long but now they also have to serve a probationary period before they can get back in line.
“Any sort of subsidized housing if you get evicted you will lose your voucher so then you are barred for a certain amount of time from being able to get another voucher,” Torres said. “So you can't even get in line again so it really puts our most vulnerable folks at risk for homelessness.”
In Las Cruces, people who get taken to court for evictions end up in Doña Ana County Magistrate Court. However, according to one attorney we talked with, these eviction hearings may not even have an attorney present.
Emma Stahl is a lawyer who has dealt with evictions extensively through her career. She says that legal issues like this are hard to comprehend even with legal training.
“Its hard for attorneys to look at federal regulations and then the advisory opinions that come out and say this is exactly how this should be applied so how are non-attorneys supposed to understand all of these federal regulations,“ Stahl said. “I do think there is a fundamental issue with training.”
Stahl said that this lack of training has real effects for tenants facing evictions. Things like reasons for eviction, right to request documents, and rights to grievance procedures are supposed to be in the eviction notices from public housing programs but are sometimes missing.
“With this case in particular that I pulled, one of the things I immediately noticed was that the tenant received a document informing her that she was behind on her rent and she had to pay it in fourteen days and if she didn't she needed to leave,” Stahl said. “The notice omits several items within the lease that even they require themselves to inform the tenant of.
The procedural issues do not end there. The managers of the public housing property are also required to inform tenants that they are being charged a late fee no later than the beginning of the next month. According to Stahl, this does not always happen and can cause tenants to owe hundreds of dollars without notice.
“I have looked through the documents filed in this petition against her and repeatedly in the ledger there are late fees, late fees, late fees for over a year and there are no late fee notices included for any of those late fees,” Stahl said.
Stahl also said that the CARES Act passed in 2020 requires landlords of subsidized properties to give tenants a 30-day notice of nonpayment of rent; something that sometimes does not happen.
“I have not seen the Mesilla Valley Public Housing Authority provide tenants with that 30-day notice. They are providing a three-day notice saying hey you are behind on rent and if you don't pay it we will give you a fourteen-day notice and then they give tenants a fourteen-day notice,” Stahl said. “I would argue in court that there are severe notice deficiencies and this is something we repeatedly see.”
The Mesilla Valley Public Housing Authority just underwent a leadership change with former executive director Juan Olivera retiring after 20 years. Interim executive director Elizabeth Garcia has taken his place. She says that they have been issuing the notices.
“We must comply with federal, state and local law. The termination process starts when the tenant violates the lease agreement. Once they fail, we start issuing notices telling them that they are not in compliance and we issue them a three day and thirty-day notice,” Garcia said. “If they do not pay attention to those notices or come and talk to their specialist then we go to court and the court will issue an eviction notice.”
However, not all properties are directly managed by the housing authority. For many of their properties, like Desert Hope apartments where, according to court documents, a woman was taken to court for not paying $183, the housing authority hires private property managers.
“They are the ones that handle that. We do not have anything to do with their eviction process. Its like private landlords. We don't tell them what to do, they have to follow though the state and local laws,” Garcia said.
While evictions can be more common in housing authorities than private housing providers, Attorney Winter Torres says that not all evictions are unnecessary but improvement still needs to be made.
“Sometimes evictions are totally justified but we would prefer to be able to get in there and see what is going on and at a minimum, if they have to be evicted, secure a shelter bed or figure out what we are going to do with this family,” Torres said.
According to the Mesilla Valley Public Housing Authority’s website, it helps house over 6,000 people and as demand for affordable housing increases, more people will be needing assistance.
