Department: Purchasing
Department Head/Elected Official: Paige McInnis
Regular or Supplemental RCA: Regular RCA
Type of Request: Contract - Renewal
Project ID (if applicable): 220395
Vendor/Entity Legal Name (if applicable): Lone Star Legal Aid
MWDBE Contracted Goal (if applicable): 0%
MWDBE Current Participation (if applicable): N/A
Justification for 0% MWDBE Participation Goal: 0% - Non-Divisible
Request Summary (Agenda Caption):
title
Request for approval of a renewal option with Lone Star Legal Aid for legal aid and eviction services for Housing and Community Development for the period of January 1, 2025 - December 31, 2026, at a cost of $4,600,000 (220395), Justification for 0% MWDBE Participation Goal: 0% - Non-Divisible.
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Background and Discussion:
As the nation recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States and Harris County are facing an eviction crisis. Eviction filings in Harris County are above the pre-pandemic average: from January through July 2022, landlords filed 121,248 evictions; tenants were represented by an attorney in only 1.96% of those cases. In one week in August of 2022, justice courts scheduled 1,865 eviction hearings. These figures do not include informal evictions, in which families self-evict before receiving a formal notice of a court proceeding.
In 2021, Harris County established the Housing Legal Services Initiative ("HLSI" or "the Initiative"), in response to an anticipated increase in number of evictions, especially for non-payment of rent due to household financial losses related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the lift of the National Center for Disease and Control (CDC) eviction moratorium, and to maximize the impact of the County's COVID-19 rental assistance program.
The HLSI makes short-term, non-cash, in-kind emergency disaster relief in the form of consulting, referral, legal, and other related legal services directed to cure legal needs due to COVID-19 for qualifying applicants in Harris County, Te...
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