At the Justice in Action Nehemiah Action Assembly in Lincoln in May, one agreed-upon goal could not happen unless volunteers got involved.
That was the implementation of mediation between landlords and tenants to prevent evictions and promote paying rent.
A pilot program, operated by the Lincoln-based The Mediation Center, would compensate 25 mediators and a staff coordinator. Rev. Casey Karges, executive director of The Mediation Center, says the organization has United Methodist roots.
“The Mediation Centers in Nebraska were established out of the farm crisis, and a lot of it had to do with United Methodist clergy that were looking for different ways that conflict could be resolved,” Karges said.
Karges, a United Methodist elder, chaired a committee from the Board of Missions in the former Nebraska Conference, which provided the initial funding.
“The concept is that we try to get people to come up with agreed-upon decisions,” he said. “So, with the farm crisis you had farmers and bankers, and they were in conflict, and they were living beside one another, and they wanted to know, isn’t there another way for us to work on this, instead of trying to bury one of them.”
The Nebraska unicameral approved mediation within the state, and the Lincoln office was one of six that were established.
Karges said his office deals with community, religious and legislative mediations.
The Mediation Center has a couple of attorneys on staff and oversees 100 affiliated mediators.
“The kind of cases we work on are an awful lot with families. So, if there’s a custody issue with children, there’s a divorce, the court wants to see an attempt at a mediation before they’ll make a decision,” Karges said. “We helped work on the legislation to make sure that that happened.”
The mediators make recommendations rather than decisions, he said.
“What’s different is, is we don’t tell people what to do,” Karges said. “We try to create the safe space to walk them through a process to see if they can come up with an agreement. Especially in family issues.
“Court’s gonna go away, attorney’s gonna go away, mediator’s gonna go,” he added. “They gotta live it out. Instead of someone else telling them what this is going to look like, can they create the plans to make that happen. We do a lot of that.”
Mediators also work with schools and in restorative justice processes, Karges said. They also make appearances at small claims court.
“Every Thursday morning, it’s 45 minutes of ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’” he said.
The Mediation Center was the right choice for the landlord-tenant conflicts highlighted by Justice in Action, Karges said.
“By the time it gets there, it’s too late to do a lot of creative resolution. We’re trying to see, can we get landlords and tenants to mediate before someone files for an eviction?” he said. “If the tenant is gonna leave, can they do it in a way that they don’t get evicted, which might hurt their next time they try to rent?”
Four of the biggest landlords in Lincoln have agreed to the mediation process, Karges said, and 28 volunteers have already agreed to take part in training, with at least another 25 needed.
“I think this will affect not only homelessness, but poverty, and hopefully make our community better,” he said.
Mediators in any state must complete a 30-hour course that includes roleplay and theory, he said. The cost is $500-$900, Karges added, but The Mediation Center is looking for grants to provide scholarships.
The Mediation Center uses a co-mediator model, so no one is doing the job by themselves, he said.
People from all walks of life can be mediators, he said.
“We have law professors, we have attorneys, we have construction people, we have a lot of education, university, or administrators, or teachers, or counselors,” Karges said. “They’re all trying to figure out how do we do conflict in a better way.”
Among the mediators is Barb Straus of Lincoln, who has more than two years of experience.
“I thought it was a really good alternative for people,” the retired case manager for the city and state said. “When I retired, I thought it would be a good way to use my social work skills.”
Straus focuses on small claims court mediation and in parenting plans for families.
“I really believe in the process of mediation, of giving people the tools to solve their own problems and solving them in a collaborative and cooperative way, rather than to go through the adversarial court process,” she said. “What happens with a lot of people is their communication breaks down and then they can’t more forward. Mediation gives them a chance to open up the lines of communication.”
Karges, who is also pastor of Cortland UMC in southeast Nebraska, said he sees his role as a mission.
“In the system, you try to win over the other one, you try to make the other one look bad,” he said. “I think why The United Methodist Church got involved in it is, is I think this is a more Christian way, to, in some way, help people come up with their solutions in a way they feel better about themselves, their community, and their neighbors. Because most of the communities we live in, we’re going to work together again.”
Karges has led the Lincoln office of The Mediation Center since 2007.
“This is ministry. This is helping people in the midst of conflicts, and this is helping people work with people,” he said. “We get people at some of their most difficult points in their life, helping them to make decisions how they are feeling called. To agree or not agree. … I always say it’s a privilege.”
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