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Housing Stability Court Navigator

The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) is partnering with the Department of Economic Security (DES) on a new local court program to educate those facing eviction about their options by identifying eviction action litigants and providing front-end assistance and information through a Housing Stability Court Navigator. The program will use available Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) funds from DES for at least the next 3 years.

WATCH THE HOUSING STABILITY COURT NAVIGATOR VIDEO
The program has two main goals:
  • Assist litigants with obtaining available federal and local resources to avoid unnecessary evictions while at the same time safeguarding landlord rights.
  • Address housing stability in vulnerable populations in treatment and specialty courts, individuals on other forms of probation, as well as those in the dependency system.
The navigator's role includes:
  • Educate litigants on the eligibility requirements for ERAP funding and provide tenants with warm hand-off referrals to identified stakeholders.
  • Interact with landlords to assist with obtaining federal and local resources to help avert those evictions due to nonpayment of rent.
  • Ensure a court-driven coordination with legal services and parties in counties in which legal aid has grant funding for dedicated counsel and paralegals in eviction cases.
  • Make contact with parties earlier in the litigation process and provide appropriate case status information to other housing program partners.
  • Develop education and public outreach programs to help litigants navigate through the court process.
Navigators will have similar duties as self-service center court staff and may even work in the court's self-service center. Some navigators may be deployed into the community at libraries and other public service centers. Other navigators may float between justice court locations in a given county. Navigators could also work on specific days at the office of their designated Community Action Program.
The AOC's role includes:
  • Coordinate training for navigators.
  • Develop supplemental skills training.
  • Facilitate monthly roundtables with navigators to address program issues and discuss which processes are working well and those that can be improved.
  • Provide DES with monthly Data Report compiling performance measures.
  • Provide technical assistance to programs.
DES will provide comprehensive training to navigators that will cover the ERAP requirements, policy, and procedures, as well as the application process.

Until the DES training is ready, new hires are provided with quick online tutorials that were created at the start of DES’s program. Questions are currently fielded by AOC staff or routed to appropriate DES contacts.

The AOC is working with the Attorney General's Office (AGO) on additional training that will address confidentiality issues, legal information versus legal advice as well as de-escalation methods and different approaches that new hires can employ when dealing with court customers. Local courts will provide their own local training for new court employees. Training will occur concurrently while the navigator is onboarding locally and identifying their continuum of local resources to share with court customers.
At this time, two counties are participating in the Navigator program:
  • Mohave
  • Yavapai
Mohave: Delanie Cencilewski [email protected]

Yavapai: Jeri Scott [email protected]