Archie Roundtree, Jr.

The Project

Archie will provide coordinated, comprehensive legal services to senior homeowners who are victims of fraud and elder abuse in order to preserve their homeownership and home equity.

Seniors are frequently confronted with fraud and elder abuse that threatens homeownership and home equity, including fraud and abuse related to real estate transactions. Examples of such abuse may be deed theft, home improvement scams (including green-energy improvements financed through the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE)), solar energy and home alarm system scams, creditors that use unsecured debts to force the sale of a home or other emerging issues. Archie’s project will help stabilize local communities by helping lower-income seniors to preserve their assets and financial independence while also preventing homelessness among older adults.

Archie’s motivations for pursuing public interest work developed while mentoring inner-city youth in the community and in juvenile justice detention facilities. It was his experience with inner-city teens, their parents, and seniors from low-income households in desperate need of legal representation that inspired him to develop writing and speaking talents to become an attorney. Archie is the right fit for this Fellowship program because of his passion for equal justice and commitment to providing efficient and effective legal services to older homeowners. Archie’s passion for pursuing public interest work motivated him to write a peer-reviewed article on the Affordable Care Act, published by the Seattle Journal for Social Justice, which offered prescriptive elements to strengthen the statute.

Fellowship Plans

Archie will expand Bet Tzedek’s capacity to provide victim-centered direct legal services in historically underserved areas of Los Angeles County, including in rural areas such as Palmdale and Lancaster. In addition to providing direct legal services, Archie will conduct presentations on elder abuse and fraud impacting homeowners, home equity protections, crime victims’ rights, civil legal options (e.g. administrative complaints, criminal charges, and affirmative litigation), and social service resources.

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