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四虎影院's One Crisis Away project focuses on North Texans living on the financial edge.

City Of Dallas Launches Legal Aid Program For Evictions

Wearing a face mask to prevent to spread of COVID-19, volunteer Scot Wingo places food atop a car to minimize face-to-face contact during a North Texas Food Bank drive-thru event Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020, in Dallas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
LM Otero
/
AP News
Wearing a face mask to prevent to spread of COVID-19, volunteer Scot Wingo places food atop a car to minimize face-to-face contact during a North Texas Food Bank drive-thru event Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020, in Dallas.

Housing experts when a national moratorium expires at the end of December. To get ahead of the surge, the City of Dallas is with Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas.

鈥淲e know that legal representation can make a significant difference in the likelihood that a person who is in the situation might be able to assert their rights, as well as understand their responsibilities,鈥 said Liz Cedillo-Pereira, chief of equity and inclusion with the City of Dallas.

The application period opens Monday for city residents adversely affected by COVID-19. In addition to possible legal representation, the program includes education and training.

In a press release, Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas Chief Executive Officer Maria Thomas-Jones said the goal is 鈥渒eeping families housed and educating tenants and landlords on their rights and responsibilities.鈥

Tenants can apply for legal assistance with eviction cases by calling Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas at 1-888-529-5277 or .

The program isn鈥檛 open to anyone with a household member who earns more than 200% of the federal poverty line. But even if people think they won鈥檛 qualify, Cedillo-Pereira said people shouldn鈥檛 be shy in reaching out.

鈥淓ven if there鈥檚 ineligibility, we would appreciate the opportunity to try to refer people to different resources that are out there,鈥 she said.

The city has a list of COVID-19 resources .

To pay for the legal aid program, the city is using $50,000 of the money it received from the federal government as part of the CARES Act relief legislation passed earlier this year.

Got a tip? Email Bret Jaspers at bjaspers@kera.org. You can follow Bret on Twitter .

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Bret Jaspers is a reporter for 四虎影院. His stories have aired nationally on the BBC, NPR鈥檚 newsmagazines, and APM鈥檚 Marketplace. He collaborated on the series Cash Flows, which won a 2020 Sigma Delta Chi award for Radio Investigative Reporting. He's a member of Actors' Equity, the professional stage actors union.