As more Americans fall behind in rent, cities adopt right to counsel programs for tenants
The idea that governments should provide free lawyers for low-income tenants in eviction court proceedings has gained traction in recent years.
According to some housing rights groups, there are at least 19 cities, two counties and five states with right to counsel programs, and more will soon follow.
Housing advocates say the country has a housing crisis, with evictions rising rapidly each year. An October 2024 Federal Reserve survey showed that 21% of renters reported that they had been behind on their rent at some point in the past year.
But critics say right to counsel programs waste local government funds and fail to help tenants with their greatest need: financial assistance.
The programs “simply delay the inevitable,” which includes eviction for tenants who can’t or won’t pay their rent, says Janet Gagnon, chief corporate affairs officer and senior vice president of government affairs and external relations for the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles. The trade association and lobbying group works with rental housing providers.
In April, the city of Los Angeles joined this growing trend aimed at helping low-income tenants avoid losing their housing. To qualify for the city’s program, tenants must earn less than 80% of the area’s median income, which is translated into up to $77,700 annual income for an individual or $110,950 for a family of four. Tenants in unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County are receiving similar support after its board of supervisors voted for a right to counsel program last summer.
While an average of 7.6 million tenants in the U.S. face eviction every year, most of them don’t have access to counsel. According to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, 96% of tenants facing evictions don’t have lawyers, while 83% of landlords are represented by counsel.
Gary Rhoades, the former litigation director for the Southern California Housing Rights Center, says it’s becoming painfully obvious that the playing field between landlords and tenants is unfair, and communities are increasingly interested in rectifying that.
“Housing is a fundamental right, and the system shouldn’t be stacked against tenants,” he says.
Housing advocates also argue that right to counsel programs advance race equity. Black women are disproportionately evicted compared with white women, according to a 2023 report by the Center for American Progress.
According to Gagnon, property owners are often mom-and-pop landlords trying to stay in business. If more tenants have lawyers, that could prolong court time, and property owners might raise rents to cover the increased litigation costs.
‘Checks and balances’
The right to counsel movement gained traction almost a decade ago when New York City became the first jurisdiction in the U.S. to adopt a program for low-income tenants. Cleveland; Denver; Newark, New Jersey; Philadelphia; and San Francisco followed up with their own programs. There are also programs in Maryland and Washington state.
Other cities, including Washington, D.C., and Bozeman, Montana, are either trying out temporary programs or establishing permanent ones.
In 2006, the ABA adopted a resolution endorsing the right to counsel “where basic human needs are at stake, such as those involving shelter, sustenance, safety, health or child custody.”
Rhoades, who serves as special counsel for the Housing Protection Department for the city of Inglewood, California, and on the editorial board of the ABA Civil Rights and Social Justice Section’s Human Rights Magazine, writes extensively on housing issues. He emphasizes that right to counsel programs appear to deter litigation by landlords, which can translate into savings for the court system.
“Without checks and balances, a small but potent minority of landlords will continue to file eviction notices based on greed or retaliation,” he says. “But if they know there will be an experienced attorney on the other side, they will be less likely to file bad evictions.”
Statistics appear to back Rhoades’ contention. In San Francisco, for example, there was a 10% decline in eviction filings a year after the city voted for the right to counsel program. In the first year after New York enacted its right to counsel law, about 84% of tenants facing eviction were able to remain in their homes, according to the Baltimore-based National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel.
The programs are far from uniform. In some jurisdictions, including San Francisco, Minneapolis and Baltimore, tenants generally don’t have to meet any financial eligibility requirements to get free counsel. In New York City, however, tenants are entitled to counsel if they are earning at or below 200% of the federal poverty line. In addition, the programs are funded in a variety of manners, such as using general revenue or dedicated fees or taxes.
In April, an article in Housing Policy Debate co-authored by Eviction Lab researchers found that the programs can face challenges such as underfunding, lack of capacity and infrastructure, and hiring and retention gaps.
Paychecks to lawyers
John Pollock, National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel coordinator, says right to counsel programs are cost-effective because paying for lawyers is cheaper than supporting individuals who lose their housing. “If you don’t pay for a lawyer, you will pay for it in police and homeless shelters and emergency medical care and mental health care and foster care. The list goes on and on,” Pollock says. “So even if the morality of providing a lawyer doesn’t convince you, the dollars saved should.”
But Gagnon asks why tenant advocates aren’t pursuing increased mediation opportunities instead of litigation and legal representation. In the end, she says, it’s neither property owners nor renters who benefit from right to counsel programs, but lawyers, who get more work. “I could be jaded, but why wouldn’t lawyers want more ways to get a paycheck?” she says.
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