Ricky McComb was thrilled when he received the keys to his first apartment: After experiencing homelessness on and off for most of his life, Mr. McComb felt fortunate when he was able to find a place of his own through the D.C. Rapid Rehousing program.  

“It was my first apartment ever in my life, so I’m thinking everything is good,” he recalled. “I’m thinking I’m living stable.”  

But that feeling of stability didn’t last: Mr. McComb found that his basement apartment had severe mold issues, backed-up plumbing, and a damaged ceiling from a water leak on the floor above. Still, he was so grateful to have any roof over his head, he said, that he felt reluctant to complain too loudly.

After about two years of living in the apartment, he learned he was facing eviction. Mr. McComb’s landlord claimed that he owed over $20,000 — a shocking amount that didn’t square with the assistance Mr. McComb was receiving to cover a portion of his rent each month.

Afraid he would lose his first real shot at stable housing, Mr. McComb came to Legal Aid DC for assistance, where he met with Senior Staff Attorney Brian Rohal.  

“I was worried I was going to get put out,” Mr. McComb said. “Brian talked to me, and he listened to me. He took what I had and read over everything, and he said that I had a case.” 

After digging into the case, Brian found that the $20,000 and counting that Mr. McComb allegedly owed his landlord simply wasn’t adding up.

“We came to realize that this was a case where a client who receives rental assistance is at risk of losing their housing over a paperwork mistake or errors by their case worker, which we see all too often," Brian said.  

Brian filed a motion to bring the Department of Human Services (DHS) and the DC Housing Authority (DCHA) into the case, compelling them to come to the table and provide answers on what went wrong.

“We were his advocates speaking to these different agencies that were supposed to be there for him to hold them to their commitment to him,” Brian said.

But the case was “an administrative nightmare” that would take Brian almost a year to straighten out.  

Untangling the Case

As he approached the end of his one-year enrollment in the Rapid Rehousing program, Mr. McComb was approved for a Housing Choice voucher so he could continue to receive needed rental assistance. He was eager to move given the unsafe conditions he had been living in, and he went to visit two different apartments with a case manager.  

Inexplicably, the case manager put one of these apartments in Mr. McComb’s file as his place of residence — even though he never signed a lease or lived there. And once that mistake went into the system, it snowballed into two major problems for Mr. McComb: First, his newly approved Housing Choice voucher started being applied to an apartment he had visited once. And second, DHS stopped paying the Rapid Rehousing subsidy on his actual apartment.

This error went uncorrected for months, all while Mr. McComb racked up overdue rent at his apartment without anyone notifying him.

“The whole time, they were paying the wrong place,” Mr. McComb said. “It all boiled down to it being my apartment building’s fault, and the housing authority’s fault, and the program’s fault. And I was placed in the middle.”

Brian said that Mr. McComb had understandably trusted his case managers to help him navigate the complexities of rental assistance programs, especially as a first-time renter. But the case management company, a contractor of DHS, had so much turnover that Mr. McComb was assigned a string of five different case managers. With his case changing hands every few months, essential information fell through the cracks, and no one stepped in to correct the mistake in Mr. McComb’s file until he was facing an eviction.

“There are so many agencies and support networks that are supposed to be there helping him that seem to have dropped the ball,” Brian said. “There’s no way you navigate this without a lawyer.”

A Fresh Start

With a better understanding of how a clerical error snowballed into an eviction notice, Brian and Mr. McComb were able to set things right. After a year of working together, they finally started hearing some good news in Mr. McComb’s case.  

“All of this man’s patience was being rewarded week after week with one more good thing,” Brian said. “This feeling of momentum was building.”

First, DHS paid Mr. McComb’s overdue rent. Then, since Mr. McComb was no longer behind on payments, his landlord dropped the eviction case. And finally, Brian coordinated with Mr. McComb's new case manager to have DCHA issue him a new voucher, which paved the way for him to move into a new place.

After three years spent in poor living conditions and a year working against an eviction case, Mr. McComb was able to find a new, safer apartment with a clean slate.  

“I love every moment of it,” he said of his new home a few weeks after moving in.  

He reached back out to Brian shortly after he moved him — and proudly sent a photo of his new keys.