Housing Justice Advocates Applaud Wisconsin Court Of Appeals Decision To Protect Public Housing Tenants From Illegal Evictions

National Housing Law Project and Legal Action Wisconsin Represented a Public Housing Tenant, Successfully Reversing Her Illegal Eviction by Watertown Housing Authority

WATERTOWN, WI—The National Housing Law Project (NHLP) and Legal Action Wisconsin today applauded a decision made last month by the Wisconsin Court of Appeals to protect a public housing tenant from an improper eviction by the Watertown Housing Authority (WHA). The ruling reversed Harriet Kester-Paletti’s eviction and bolstered protections against arbitrary eviction for public housing tenants across the country. This case critically upholds the rule that good cause for eviction from public housing does not exist absent serious tenant wrongdoing and a material risk of harm to others.

“Evictions are devastating, especially for public housing tenants whose only other choice is often homelessness. This case rightly interprets public housing regulations that do not allow evictions without serious tenant wrongdoing or any genuine threat to people or property. The court reached the correct outcome and the outstanding decision is one for all housing authorities to follow,” National Housing Law Project Eviction Initiative Project Director Marie Claire Tran-Leung said.

“We believe that communities are better when everyone has access to safe and affordable housing. Public housing can be a mechanism to make this possible, but not if tenant rights are not upheld. We are glad to see the court recognize and uphold the rights of our client,” said Legal Action Attorney Erin Kautz. “Legal Action represents tenants, like Ms. Kester-Paletti whose resilience in the face of injustice can have far reaching impacts on tenants across the state. We want to thank her for her standing up to injustice.”

Ms. Kester-Paletti and Legal Action Wisconsin argued that parking a broken car in the property’s parking lot was not a sufficient lease violation to warrant eviction from public housing. In an amicus brief, NHLP argued that the parking rules were not material to the lease, and that the violation of those rules was neither serious nor repeated and did not risk physical or financial harm to the property, staff, or other tenants. In addition, the NHLP amicus brief made clear that evictions from public housing should only be used as final recourse because tenants evicted from public housing have few if any viable alternatives for housing and are at extreme risk of becoming homeless.

Read a brief on the litigation here, full text of the National Housing Law Project’s amicus brief here, and the Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision here.