From 2009 to today TFA & LEE have helped me teach, learn, & grow into a leader focused on service to others. It drove me to write legislation to boost accelerated math, to make educ. transitions easier for kids in foster care + more. Grateful to have a weekend to be inspired by my peers old & new. 🍏
![Under current Virginia law, Virginia tenants can't use unsafe or unsanitary conditions as a defense if they fail to pay rent. "I've had [clients] fall through their floor, be bitten by rats, and if they're behind on the rent, sometimes ... you just are like, well, there's not a lot we can do here," says Victoria Horrock, senior supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Justice Center.
"We are such a landlord-friendly state," says Charlottesville Del. Katrina Callsen. "It makes it so that defense is practically unfeasible for people that are facing eviction."
Callsen's bill HB281, signed into law this year, lets tenants cite uninhabitable conditions to defend against eviction. The new law takes effect July 1. "It just seems so basic," Callsen says, "that you should at the very least be able to tell the judge the conditions of the place that you lived and why you might not have been paying rent without having to basically pay to raise a defense."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:dp65sbnyfsevsgv46ins57zp/bafkreifaybdqkdca3nc7hbouysd7zdjdl5yhgsac2nkn5ukvij2xndiooi)
