A lawyer who handles tenant rights cases talks about the challenges facing people who are evicted under Mississippi law. Attorney Jordan Boling Hughes is with the Low-income Housing Center at the University of Mississippi. She is one of the lawyers representing Samantha Connor of Columbus. The paralegal was evicted in February of 2019 for being less than $1,000 behind in her rent. Hughes says the landlord seized all her property and that of her children. It was devastating for them, altering their lives.
“This impacts every part of your life once this happens to you and that’s what it did to her. She was homeless for a long time. She was unemployed for a long time and that’s what we’ve seen over and over again. It stops your life completely once you lose everything,” Hughes said
Hughes says the state’s eviction law doesn’t require tenants be notified when a landlord obtains a warrant for removal. And owners can refuse to let the tenants take anything. In Connor's case, Hughes says the landlord sold what he could, donated some and threw the rest away. Last week, a federal judge ruled the statute unconstitutional writing “no other state has enacted as draconian an eviction scheme as Mississippi.”
“We didn’t even have clothes to put on. We didn’t have shoes to put on, underwear to put on. We didn’t have anything to put on,”
That’s Louise Patmon of Columbus. She says in October of 2019, Kevin Casteel, the landlord who evicted Connor, evicted her family. Attorney Hughes is representing her as well. Patmon says she wasn't home at the time, but got a call from her daughter Casteel was there telling them to leave. She says he put her grandchildren out with diapers on and no shoes and her father suffering from lung cancer in pajamas.
Patmon says Casteel refused to let them take their belongings. She says she told him they'd have the $800 dollars several days later, in hopes the landlord would let them have their property back. Patmon says Casteel wouldn't take her calls or the money.
“I lost everything. I lost my dad. He was grieving in the midst because he lost all his belongings. He had brand new boots and everything. He whined about it. He talked about it every day up until he died,” Patmon said.
The state hasn’t announced if it will appeal the federal judge’s ruling.
