Eviction Consequences
Eviction filing and demographic data
Eviction Lab: Eviction Tracking System
Eviction Lab: Estimating the Prevalence of Eviction in the United States: New Data from the 2017 American Housing Survey (2021) (containing data on illegal eviction rates).
LSC’s Eviction Tracker
Eviction filings soar over 50% above pre-pandemic levels in some cities as rents increase
Eviction Process and Laws
LSC’s Effect of State & Local Laws on Evictions and Fast and Cheap: The Speed and Cost of Evicting Tenants for Nonpayment of Rent
NLIHC’s ERASE Project: Tenant Protection Resource (for state and local tenant protection laws)
Eviction records
ACLU, Clearing the Record: How Eviction Sealing Laws Can Advance Housing Access for Women of Color (Jan. 10, 2020).
Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, Evicted for Life: How eviction court records are creating a new barrier to housing (June 12, 2019) (describing state record-sealing laws).
National Consumer Law Center, Salt in the Wound: How Eviction Records and Back Rent Haunt Tenant Screening Reports and Credit Scores (Aug. 1, 2020).
Adam Porton, Ashley Gromis, and Matthew Desmond, Inaccuracies in Eviction Records: Implications for Renters and Researchers (July 28, 2020).
Mediation
Hawaii Appleseed, Eviction Prevention Through Hawaii’s Tenant-Landlord Mediation Program (Oct. 2022).
Joel Kurtzberg and Jamie Henikoff, Freeing the Parties from the Law: Designing an Interest and Rights Focused Model of Landlord/Tenant Mediation, 1997 J. Disp. Resol. (1997).
Washington Courts, Helping Tenants and Landlords Avoid Eviction Proceedings During COVID-19 (July 1, 2022).
Race Equity
ACLU, Clearing the Record: How Eviction Sealing Laws Can Advance Housing Access for Women of Color (Jan. 10, 2020).
ACLU and the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel, No Eviction without Representation: Evictions’ Disproportionate Harms and the Promise of a Right to Counsel (2021).
Aspen Institute, The COVID-19 Eviction Crisis: an Estimated 30-40 Million People in America Are at Risk (Aug. 7, 2020).
Center for American Progress, The Disproportionate Burden of Eviction on Black Women (Aug. 29, 2023).
Center for American Progress, Racial Disparities in Home Appreciation (July 15,2019).
Matthew Desmond, Poor Black Women Are Evicted at Alarming Rates, Setting Off a Chain of Hardship, MacArthur Foundation (Mar. 2014).
Eviction Lab, Racial and Gender Disparities Among Evicted Americans (Dec. 16, 2020).
Reinvestment Fund, Evictions in Philadelphia: Race (and Place) Matters (Feb. 2021).
Results for America, Advancing Housing Justice: Right to Counsel for Tenants - Informational Webinar (2022).
Timothy A. Thomas, et al., The State of Evictions: Results from the University of Washington Evictions Project, University of Washington (Jan. 6, 2020).
Representation in eviction: benefits
In addition to other key resources, our comprehensive bibliography tracks the studies that have analyzed the impact of providing counsel for tenants in eviction cases.
City of Boulder, 2021 Eviction Prevention and Rental Assistance Services Annual Report (2021).
Eviction Defense Collaborative, Tenant Right to Counsel Data - Outcomes (2021) (San Francisco data)
Aubrey Hasvold and Jack Regenbogen, Facing Eviction Alone: A Study of Evictions (2016) (Denver study).
City of Kansas City, Press Release: Kansas City program helping residents stay housed (Sept. 21, 2022).
Open Justice Oklahoma, Legal Representation and Eviction Outcomes in Tulsa County.
Carroll Seron, The Impact of Legal Counsel on Outcomes for Poor Tenants in New York City’s Housing Court: Results of a Randomized Experiment, 35 Law & Society Rev. 419 (2001) (discussing rent abatements obtained with and without counsel).
Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid and Volunteer Lawyers Network, Legal Representation in Evictions - Comparative Study (2018) (study of Hennepin County MN).
NYC Office of Civil Justice, Universal Access to Legal Services: A Report on Year Five of Implementation in New York City (Winter 2022).
Jessica Steinberg, In Pursuit of Justice? Case Outcomes and the Delivery of Unbundled Legal Services, 18 Geo. J. on Poverty L. & Pol'y 453 (2011) (CA study).
Stout, Eviction Right to Counsel Resource Center (cost/benefit reports).
Stout, Independent Evaluation of RTC-C: Key Findings (Jan. 31, 2023).
Unrepresented tenant problems
Julian R. Birnbaum, Nancy B. Collins, and Anthony J. Fusco Jr., Chicago's Eviction Court: A Tenant's Court of No Resort, 17 Urb. L. Ann. 093 (1979) (discussing low tenant success rate for asserting warranty of habitability).
Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development, The Cleveland Eviction Study: Observations in Eviction Court and the Stories of People Facing Eviction (Oct. 2019) (discussing speed of evictions).
Rich Curran and Andrew Nelson, Denton should do more to protect renters, Dallas Morning News (Sept. 9, 2023) (describing results of court watch program that found tenants often not allowed to speak or ask questions).
Paula A. Franzese, Abbott Gorin, & David J. Guzik, The Implied Warranty of Habitability Lives: Making Real the Promise of Landlord-Tenant Reform, Rutgers Univ. L. Rev. Vol 69:1 (Fall 2016).
David A. Hoffman and Anton Strezhnev, Leases as Forms (Jan. 6, 2022) (discussing nationalization of leases that are often not adapted to be compliant with state/local law).
Housing Initiative at Penn, Trends and Challenges in the Philadelphia Rental Market (June 2022) (discussing illegal evictions).
Josh Kaplan, Thousands Of D.C. Renters Are Evicted Every Year. Do They All Know To Show Up To Court?, DCist (Oct. 5, 2020) (describing problems with defective notice).
National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel, Eviction representation statistics for landlords and tenants absent special intervention (Sept 2023) (stats on imbalance of representation).
National Housing Law Project, Stopping COVID-19 Evictions: Survey Results (July 2020) (data on illegal evictions).
Public Justice Center, Justice Diverted: How Renters Are Processed in Baltimore City Rent Court (Dec. 2015) (discussing renters not articulating available defenses).
RVA Eviction Lab, Eviction, legal counsel, and the courthouse (Nov. 8, 2021) (discussing speed of evictions).
Nicole Summers, The Limits of Good Law: A Study of Housing Court Outcomes (2019) (NYC).
Eviction data
Court watch programs
Housing for Hoosiers’ Court Watcher’s Toolkit
CASA-NYC, Tipping the Scales (court watch report)
Look in our appendices for JPNSI’s court watch forms
Eviction data trackers for specific jurisdictions
Atlanta Region Eviction Tracker - Metro Atlanta Housing Strategy
Maricopa County Evictions Dashboard | Knowledge Exchange for Resilience
Housing Matters, Do Large Landlords’ Eviction Practices Differ from Small Landlords? (Feb. 1, 2023)
U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey (asks tenants questions about whether they are at risk of eviction and how far behind they are in rent)
Messaging
PolicyLink, Housing Futures and Land Justice
PolicyLink, The Words We Use Shape Our Reality: How We Tell Stories is Critical to Building Our Housing Futures
RTCNYC’s messaging efforts are documented in their RTC Toolkit and their documentary: Our Rights! Our Power! The Right to Counsel Campaign to Fight Evictions in NYC.
Visioning exercise from ARHJ/AHJ:RTC
Voices for Civil Justice on what messages work re: RTC/Legal Aid
Organizing
Andrew Messamore, The Effect of Community Organizing on Landlords’ Use of Eviction Filing: Evidence from U.S. Cities, 70(3) Social Problems 809-30 (Aug. 2023)
Jamila Michener, Power from the Margins: Grassroots Mobilization and Urban Expansions of Civil Legal Rights, Urban Affairs Review (2019)
Right to Counsel NYC Coalition:
National Organizing Convening on RTC (generating a list of organizing and legislation principles)
Our Rights! Our Power! (documentary about the campaign in NYC)
Right to Counsel NYC Coalition and National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel:
Lessons From Four Cities Fighting to Stop Evictions with Right to Counsel
Webinar: Winning the Right to Counsel in Eviction Cases: Organizing and the Role of Lawyers (2019):
Right to Counsel NYC Coalition and TakeRoot Justice, Organizing is Different Now! How the Right to Counsel Strengthens the Tenant Movement in New York City (March 2022)
Organizing groups / coalitions previously or currently engaged in RTC:
The Right to Counsel NYC Coalition has a RTC campaign map displaying where campaigns are active
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA): Chapters in Boulder, Denver, San Francisco, Connecticut, and Jersey City
KC Tenants (Kansas City)
Tenants Together (San Francisco)
RTC cost and/or benefit
I4J Lab, University of California, Eviction Cost Calculator
Massachusetts and Delaware cost/benefit reports
NCCRC / Washington Appleseed, Developing Civil Right to Counsel Pilot Programs
Stout Eviction RTC Resource Center, which includes their cost/benefits reports
RTC Funding
Justice in Government Project’s Funding Matrix: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) Programs that can Support Civil Access to Justice
The NCCRC’s enacted laws matrix covers “funding” for all existing eviction RTC ordinances and laws, and our federal funding tracker and guidance docs provide extensive information on the parameters of federal funding opportunities as well as who has used such funding to date
NLIHC End Rental Arrears to Stop Evictions (ERASE) Program: provides grants for both rental assistance and legal representation programs
Ballot initiatives
Housing Justice on the Ballot: Initiative Guide, PolicyLink and NCCRC (2023)
Housing on the Ballot: How to Organize a Successful Ballot Measure Campaign for Affordable Homes, NLIHC (2022)
Pilot Projects
NCCRC and Washington Appleseed, Developing Civil Right to Counsel Pilot Projects
RTC resolutions
American Bar Association Resolution 112A (2006)
Implementation generally
Articles and papers:
Implementing New York City's Universal Access to Counsel Program: Lessons for Other Jurisdictions
RTCNYC’s Toolkit’s Chapter 12: Organizing for a Just and Powerful Implementation
Civil Legal Service Providers of New York City Concept Paper: Right to Counsel in Eviction Proceedings (addressing implementation issues)
State/local right to counsel websites:
Detroit (Facebook page)
Lake Worth (petition)
Philadelphia: City page and PEPP program page
Washington State: OCLA site (contains implementation memos)
Outreach
Cleveland
United Way of Greater Cleveland - Hyper Local Outreach materials
Free Eviction Help, RTC toolkit
Mass. Legal Services COVID Eviction Legal Help Project - Building Partnerships & Community Connections
Seattle Director’s Rule 9-2021: Right to Legal Counsel in Eviction Proceedings
Washington State’s Eviction Prevention Campaign Toolkit (includes notice of RTC)
Sample notices to tenants:
Rollout and hearing-related
Supreme Court of Texas emergency order (requires courts to give legal services access to courts)
Washington State continuances court rule and WA State Attorney General guidance
Legal services infrastructure
Stout’s cost-benefit analyses (provide good overview of common legal services provider infrastructure changes)
NYC Housing Justice Leadership Institute (Sample syllabus; RTC supervisor training)
RTCNYC Pipeline Working Group survey of housing staff attorneys
Massachusetts “Access to Justice” bar exam question
Attorney Pay
Cathy Carr, Fairness and Justice in Setting Legal Services Attorney Salaries: Finding the Will to Get There, MIE Journal (Summer 2007).
Attorney Hiring (sample postings)
Connecticut right to counsel position listing compilation
Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, Attorney (Volunteer Coordinator - Right to Counsel Project) (2021)
Maryland Legal Services Corporation (MLSC), Program Manager, Access to Counsel (MD)
NYC Housing and RTC jobs board for attorneys and RTCNYC Coalition Campaign Manager
New Orleans: Southeast LA Legal Services, Right to counsel staff attorney position
San Francisco Eviction Defense Collaborative, Program Coordinator (Right to Counsel)
Platforms for grant administration/management:
Foundant (note: difficulty with extracting and analyzing reports)
Salesforce (note: lots of capability but expensive)
SmartSimple (MD)