Eviction firms sued for hiring

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Six area eviction companies have been hit with a federal class-action lawsuit that accuses them of breaking minimum-wage laws by routinely hiring homeless people at rates as low as $2 an hour.

The suit, filed last week in federal court in the District, says the companies recruit the homeless to evict people from their homes and apartments, paying them far less than legal minimum wages.

The suit also says the companies have broken federal anti-trust laws by conspiring to keep wages low. The businesses rely predominantly on homeless workers hired on a per-day basis, instead of having a standing team of employees, the suit states.

Minimum wage in the District is $7 an hour. The federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour.

The lawsuit names as defendants East Coast Express Eviction and All American Eviction Company, both in the District; A-1 Eviction Services of Upper Marlboro; A&A Cardinal Eviction Services of Waldorf; Big Time Movers of Silver Spring; and Butch Enterprises of Fairfax.

Officials at several of the companies could not be reached for comment yesterday, and the court docket does not show that they have been served with a copy of the suit.

According to the lawsuit, one of the plaintiffs, Kirk Greene, who lives in a homeless shelter, has worked on about 50 evictions in the past two years.

On Aug. 1, he performed three evictions after getting picked up by a work truck at So Others May Eat, a homeless-services organization, the suit states.

Mr. Greene spent six hours on the jobs and got paid a total of $15, or $2.50 an hour, the suit states.

Another homeless plaintiff, Anthony Forte, worked three hours on eviction jobs on Aug. 4, but walked away with $5, according to the lawsuit.

The eviction companies typically park their trucks outside homeless shelters after breakfast is served to recruit workers, according to the suit.

The suit comes months after a report criticizing the practice appeared in Street Sense, a District-based monthly newspaper largely written by the homeless and the formerly homeless.

The report states area eviction companies rely on the homeless to remove the belongings of those who have defaulted on rental agreements, paying the workers as little as $1.25 per hour.

Executives at All American Eviction and East Coast Eviction denied the practice, according to the paper.

"Caroline Lansford, the CEO of All American, said her company never pays homeless people and that all of the workers performing evictions are 'part of the staff,'" the paper reported.

The lawsuit, filed Sept. 5 by District-based Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton LLP, seeks an unspecified amount of back wages, a court order barring companies from illegally paying sub-par wages and damages for violations of anti-trust laws.