When Louisiana sued them, they paid. The suits were later dropped, but they’re still out of luck.

‘I followed the rules’

Judy Baptiste started sending the state $400 a month in March 2018 to pay down the $23,000 the state claimed she owed for misspending her elevation grant. Her sole source of income, Social Security, was less than $1,100 a month. After paying the state, she said, she rarely had enough left over for food or utilities.

Still, she didn’t feel she had a choice.

“They just kept sending me letters in the mail, telling me that if I didn’t pay them that they would put a lien on my house,” she said of Shows, Cali & Walsh, the law firm that handled the suits for the state. The firm did not respond to requests for comment.

Angie and Kevin Tillman, who live in Gentilly, agreed to a plan that required them to make monthly payments of $250 for five years, plus a balloon payment of about $15,000 at the end. She later learned the state had paused its collection efforts back in May, but afterwards still cashed four of their checks, totaling $1,000.

Her husband called the state’s actions “reprehensible.”

“The state held us hostage financially, and they would have continued to take our money and not said a mumbling word,” he said.

When asked why the state continued to accept payments from homeowners after the state paused its collection efforts, Dardenne said the state had no choice. “Those were legal judgments that had been rendered,” he said. “And so, we determined that we couldn’t stop what was in place. But we stopped everything going forward.”

Lovett, the law professor, called the state’s argument that it couldn’t stop collecting payments “very strange.” Anyone can choose to forgive a debt, he said.

“I think the argument about their inability to stop collecting, even on a court judgment, is just a technicality, is putting form over substance,” Lovett said.

The whole affair has caused Angie Tillman to question whether she and her husband made the right choice to stay.