But it happens. Not very often to those of us in the media, to be sure, although some of us have covered stories about poor families being evicted when we were young reporters, though such cases are too often ignored by everybody.
Recently, however, I was talking with a state supreme court justice – and not an especially liberal one – when they startled me by saying that a lot of people who were being evicted didn’t protest, even when they had grounds to do so. “They think that if they miss a payment, the landlord has the right to throw them out, and they don’t think they have any recourse,” the justices said
Well, sometimes they do have legitimate grounds to fight eviction — and nobody can be evicted without a court order. Fortunately, we’ve just had rare bipartisan cooperation on a bill sponsored by State Sen. Pete Lucido, a Republican, and signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Senate Bill clearly specifies just which officials can be ordered by a court to evict a tenant
That’s limited to local law enforcement officers, court officers
More needs to be done, however, to clarify tenant rights and make sure everyone is aware of them. Unless illegal drug sales are involved, the landlord has to give you at least seven, and sometimes 30 days before evicting you
