Municipalities elsewhere have taken more ambitious measures to combat forced evictions. New York and San Francisco have passed bylaws that guarantee each tenant a lawyer in an eviction court. But even if this is not done, existing legal resources, especially mediation, can help tenants be fairer in Deals agreements. The Center for Conflict resolution currently provides about 100 deportation cases a year in Chicago – 60% of these negotiations end in an agreement, 97% of which are respected by both sides. Since mediation is offered by a non-profit organization, it does not cost the taxpayer a penny, yet by observing more than 100 hearings in Chicago`s eviction rooms, the reader has heard a judge or other members of the court inform the judges of the availability of this service on a few occasions. But Staples said she wouldn`t budge, at least because she wasn`t dealing with rats “knocking on the door,” as she had done before under the direction. Quincy Miller, 33, another tenant in the building who uses a wheelchair, said that after only a few months in the building, he decided not to renew his lease. Almost a month later, a private investigator showed up at their door and called a summons to someone else who lived in a building owned by the same owner, a kilometre away. Horton said that when she talked about the error, the detective told her to go to court. She did not feel she was right. “If my name is on the lease, something to do with the lease will have my name on it.” (In fact, under state law, serving someone on a subpoena that is not addressed to someone or persons over the age of 13 at the same address is not a service service.) The citation contained a sinister warning in the appeal: “If you do not file an appearance and challenge the application, a default judgment may be recorded for the discharge requested in the deportation complaint.” In recent years, Pangea has become increasingly interested in tenant associations – not so much for forced evictions, because the statistics of the files are not publicly reported by the courts, but on the living conditions in their buildings. The Metropolitan Tenants Organization – a non-profit organization that trains and organizes tenants and runs a consulting hotline – now receives more calls to Pangea than any other landlord.

While complaints about mold, rodents, microphones and degradation are the same as for many other homeowners in the low-income housing market, the organization said no company has complained of as many tenants of unexpected costs – for routine maintenance requests and thermal repairs, and especially for water. David Wilson, of MTO, said he had received an eruption of calls from Pangea tenants reporting that the company had been charging them for weeks or months after “the manager told them, “Don`t worry about a water bill], it`s only on the lease, but you don`t have to pay.” These fees, which Pangea calculates on the basis of a building`s total water bill divided by the number of square metres of each unit (instead of the individual use of a tenant) can amount to an additional $30 or $40 per month. In theory, Chicago tenants have access to another system, intermediation through the Center for Conflict Resolution, which regularly communicates eviction disputes, the majority ending with agreements that are respected by both parties. But Chicago`s eviction courts don`t inform tenants of their right to access this system, and so they go through the courts, lose their homes and are cursed by the task of eviction forever.