Springfield Tenants Unite

It’s time to pass a Right to Counsel, and our Court Watch Team has the data to show it.

Even though Mayor Schrag has made housing a priority, a RTC ordinance has sat in Councilwoman Callie Carroll’s Community Involvement Committee for over a year-and-a-half. In the meantime, most of the 90 eviction court cases our team has witnessed so far have lasted less than five minutes and ended in evictions. 99% of those tenants had no representation. That ain’t right.
On Tuesday, tenants and allies alike gathered to learn how to join Court Watch and what we can do to get a Right to Counsel out to the full City Council for a vote.

It’s up to us to speak out, put pressure on Council, and help balance the scales to keep our families and our neighbors housed.

Attend our Town Hall on August 29th from 3:00 - 5:00 PM at The Resurrection Church to learn more and make your voice heard.

Reposted to pin: Our union acts as an organizing body for tenants across our city but cannot act as a service provider for individual tenants. Despite our limitations, we still recognize many in Springfield face immediate crises of housing insecurity, critically unsafe living conditions, and landlord mistreatment or violations.

For those in emergency situations, we recommend two key community service providers: the One Door program through Community Partnership of the Ozarks and Legal Services of Southwest Missouri.

If you are in search of legal assistance, LSSM, who we regularly partner with, represents low-income community members and is available to take on some tenant cases.

https://www.lsosm.org

One Door assists those who are homeless or at immediate risk of homelessness throughout Greene, Christian and Webster counties.

https://cpozarks.org/programs/one-door/

To contact us, you can either reach out via the email address in our bio or submit a Landlord Incident Report Form. As the only organization regularly collecting data on tenant issues in Springfield, this form allows us to keep up-to-date information on our community as we continue developing a set of resources, know your rights tools, and an action plan to fight back against attacks on tenants and people that are experiencing homelessness. Organizing with your neighbors and contacting us as a collective gives us the best foundation for supporting you.

https://bit.ly/Incidents-STUN

500+ VOLUNTEERS. 15,000+ DOORS. ONE MISSION: DEFEND MISSOURI. 🙌🏾

Saturday, July 18, from 12–5 PM, we're launching our statewide Get Out the Vote kick-off with rallies and canvassing across the entire state. 🗳️ Vote NO on A4 to protect our democracy. 🗳️ Vote NO on A5 to protect our wallets. These amendment fights are about more than policy; it's about our community, our future, and standing up for what's right.

🔗 Register here: https://www.mobilize.us/mogotv/event/979890/ 🏷️ Tag a friend who needs to see this. 📲 Comment below if you're showing up this Saturday! 👋🏽👋🏾👋🏿

We are proud to announce the launch of our Eviction Court Team on Tuesday, July 21, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. This free event will be crucial in understanding how eviction works and a tenants’ Right to Counsel can be developed and utilized from the data collected in current eviction cases.

Jai Byrd, the Data Lead and Manager for the team at STUN, will host an open discussion about the eviction crisis with fellow Court Watch Team leaders. People are strongly encouraged to participate and share their stories and experiences around housing insecurity.

Food and refreshments will be available, and attendees are welcome to stay at the venue after the event for Space Jam, a gathering celebrating the Springfield music community and its talents.

Register here: https://actionnetwork.org/events/stun-eviction-court-watch-launch/

When tenants are guaranteed legal representation in eviction court, it’s not just individual households that see the benefit, but entire communities.

Nashville, Detroit and Cleveland are just three cities across the US that have established Right to Counsel and have seen remarkable returns in investment. This net positive is compounded by the fact that lowered eviction rates decrease cities’ spending in the downstream impacts of the eviction crisis such as short-term aid for the unsheltered community, health care, and school services.

When we choose proactive solutions rather than solely reactive policies that only address the symptoms of issues, the results speak for themselves.

Our families deserve to be invested in, and Right to Counsel is a proven program that our city government should use to protect tenant households across Springfield. Learn more about our campaign to secure RTC and how to take action here: https://www.springfieldtenantsunite.org/rtc

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As a tenant union representing renters of all demographics, we do not tolerate comments that include racist, sexist, anti-working class, anti-LGBTQ+, ableist, body shaming, xenophobic, or otherwise hateful language or insults.

By engaging with our content you agree to these guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove comments in violation of this rule. Thank you for your cooperation.

Whether shooting B-roll of interviewees’ homes and art practice, discussing edits, or laughing together over shared jokes as a team, community and envisioning a future where safe, accessible, and truly affordable housing is fully treated as a human right has been at the foundation of our work on Finding Home.

As we get closer to announcing our screening dates, we hope you will join us in supporting the release of and community art events surrounding this documentary built at the intersection of housing justice and the arts.

To learn more about the film and donate to our fundraiser, tap the link below for the Finding Home landing page.

https://www.liberatedcreatives.com/finding-home

We need to talk about the devastation of evictions in Springfield.

Eviction court hearings are where the affordable housing crisis and the issue of tenant rights come to a head. It is one of the most pivotal moments for those struggling to maintain stable housing, and it is certainly the most public aspect of the housing crisis.

For the cases we have observed thus far, 98% of tenants are not afforded a lawyer and the vast majority of hearings are less than five minutes. This isn’t justice, and we’re done playing a game rigged in favor of landlords.

If you’re ready to be part of the solution for housing instability and our imbalanced court system, we urge you to join us Tuesday July 21 from 6:00 to 7:30 PM for our Eviction Court Watch Orientation. Together, we will discuss the efforts of our Court Watch Team, how to plug into this work, and hear from City Council member Brandon Jenson about how the current dynamics of the court are harming tenants.

Don’t be a bystander to the eviction crisis, be a witness. Sign up to attend through the event registration link below. Location will be provided after the form is submitted.

https://bit.ly/eviction-court-observer-sign-up