Lawmakers OK tenants’ civil right to counsel bill. Will it be ready to stop an eviction cliff?
A bill signed by Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday makes Washington the first state in the country to guarantee legal representation to low-income tenants facing eviction.
Cities such as Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, and Cleveland have passed similar laws in recent years, which require courts to appoint an attorney for any tenant earning less than 200% of the federal poverty level, but Washington is the first state to do so.
Sen. Patty Kuderer (D-Bellevue), the prime sponsor of SB 5160, described it as “a fundamental shift in how we look at the eviction process in Washington state.”
“It’s an acknowledgment that housing is an essential need and that it’s different from other things in our culture that we sell and rent and buy,” Kuderer told The Olympian.
Currently only about 8% of tenants facing eviction in Washington have access to a lawyer.
Other parts of the bill aim to set up an off-ramp to the eviction moratorium by setting terms for “reasonable” repayment plans, temporarily banning late fees for six months after the eviction moratorium ends, and creating a mediation program using local Dispute Resolution Centers (DRCs) to divert tenants with unpaid rent away from eviction courts.
Yet some warn that tenants may lose their homes before they can access that right due to an amendment to the bill, sponsored by Rep. Michelle Caldier (R-Port Orchard), which declares the governor’s moratorium on evictions must end on June 30.
“The outcomes are we want are for people to stay housed, catch up on rent, and get back on their feet,” said Erin Fenner, Communications Director for Washington Community Action Network, which has advocated for the current eviction moratorium policies to be “extended or replicated” through the end of 2021.
“We are not at that place yet.”
One of the entities raising alarm bells is the state Office of Civil Legal Aid (OCLA), which estimated it will take months to hire enough contract attorneys to meet the high volume of anticipated need, with money from a budget that hasn’t been passed yet. It will definitely take longer than June 30, the agency’s director wrote in an email.
For comparison, New York City, which passed similar legislation in 2017, has taken years to roll out its right to counsel program. As of 2019, it was still only serving 38% of tenants, according to a report from that year.
More than 160,000 people are currently behind on rent, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, and counties are just beginning to distribute the most recent round of federal rent assistance dollars.
“From a public health standpoint I think it’s premature,” said Kuderer of ending the moratorium on June 30. “For the bill to work optimally, we still need to have that runway so we can get these resources put in place. And I think by lifting that moratorium the way it was done in that legislation it ignores the fact that those pieces have not been put in place yet.”
Although he vetoed two other sections of the bill, Gov. Inslee did not veto the section ending the moratorium on June 30. Inslee did not address the bill at a press conference on Thursday afternoon, and the news was shared by an email from his office sent at 5 p.m.
In response to a question from The Olympian about whether the governor plans to take any action to extend eviction protections past June 30, his office said there is currently no intention to do so.
“Right now there are no plans but we’ll continue to follow the pandemic’s impact on housing and make any necessary decisions to help,” wrote Mike Faulk, Deputy Communications Director for the governor.
Fenner said the governor’s inaction on the amendment setting a June 30 deadline sends a troubling message.
“It seems like a strong political signal. Renters who I was speaking with were like, regardless of whether its legally binding or not, they’re seeing the writing on the wall.”
A crucial part of the bill’s off-ramp requires that landlords participate in a mediation program through a local dispute resolution center before filing for eviction for nonpayment of rent.
But according to Jim Bamberger, executive director of the Office of Civil Legal Aid, currently only six of 37 judicial districts — courts in Thurston, Pierce, King, Clark, Snohomish and Spokane counties — have these Eviction Resolution Pilot programs, and other local courts are not required to create them under the bill.
In those jurisdictions that do choose to set up an eviction resolution pilot program, it will take months for the courts and DRCs to actually get it up and running. Because the mediation program’s goal is to avoid overwhelming courts by diverting cases, some courts that are not as backlogged may simply not create a mediation program at all.
“Outside of the six pilot counties, there will be no DRC certification protocol in the immediate post-moratorium period,” Bamberger wrote in an email, “leaving landlords with full authority to proceed to unlawful detainer proceedings at the expiration of the 14-day notice period.”
Gov. Inslee did veto two sections of the bill which would have obligated the Department of Commerce to provide rent assistance until April 2022 to landlords whose tenants make too much money to access the existing U.S. Treasury rent assistance, which is means-tested and capped at income levels of 80% of Area Median Income.
In a memo released on Thursday, Inslee wrote that the provision would put the state on the hook for $2.4 billion, which is more than double the amount the legislature has proposed for funding rent assistance and “could not be sustained by available fiscal resources.”
“It creates an entitlement for landlords to receive rent assistance without a sufficient framework to prioritize resources to those landlords who have the greatest need,” Inslee wrote, explaining why he vetoed the section.
The vetoes were requested by Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate, the governor’s office wrote in an email responding to a question from a Seattle Times reporter.
In a prepared statement sent out on Friday, Caldier criticized the governor’s decision to veto the section, which she said was intended to “help landlords when the tenants are not cooperative or don’t qualify for available rental assistance.”
“The assistance provided under these sections would have made them whole again and would have given them a fresh start,” Caldier wrote.
A separate section of the bill that remained intact expands the already-existing landlord mitigation program to pay landlords up to $15,000 to cover unpaid rent.
That’s on top of nearly one billion dollars in rent relief allotted in current budget proposals.
This story was originally published April 23, 2021 at 5:45 AM with the headline "Lawmakers OK tenants’ civil right to counsel bill. Will it be ready to stop an eviction cliff?."
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