Akron municipal court housing navigators describe eviction-prevention work, warn grant ends in November

Tara Moseley Weems, court navigator for Akron Municipal Court, and Byron Finney, housing specialist for Akron Municipal Court, told the Akron City Council housing committee on an interim committee call that their court-based housing resource center helps tenants and landlords avoid evictions but faces funding and data challenges.

The pair said the navigator positions are grant funded through the National Center for State Courts and that “our funding will be ending in November of this year,” Moseley Weems said. They described a mix of tenant outreach, landlord engagement, on-site intake and search tools, mediation efforts and partnerships that aim to keep people housed or move them to available temporary and permanent options.

The presentation matters to Akron residents and policymakers because the navigators link people at imminent risk of eviction to housing inventories, emergency assistance programs and mediation at the courthouse, actions that directly affect evictions, homelessness intake and use of federal and local housing dollars.

Moseley Weems and Finney said the program distributes flyers and works with community partners such as United Way, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, and uses the online listing summitihousingsearch.org as a primary housing inventory. Finney described weekday courthouse outreach: when bailiffs conduct set-outs on Wednesdays the navigators travel with them to offer housing help to people who did not appear in court or who need immediate options. “We pass out…