Tenant RTC campaign launched in Phoenix

In Maricopa County, where KJZZ reports that fewer than 1% of tenants have access to counsel as contrasted with 94% of landlords, organizers and advocates are in a campaign to enact a tenant right to counsel in Phoenix.

City Councilmember Kesha Hodge Washington said that as tenants have a right to counsel, eviction rates decrease and communities are more stable.  She urged the City to take action on RTC: “It is time to make RTC permanent in Phoenix. “We have it on a temporary basis through the use of ARPA funds. But imagine a Phoenix where families feel secure in their home knowing they have a fighting chance if faced with evictions. We can see a significant reduction in homelessness, a continued reduction in homelessness as we address one of the root causes. Tenants can assert their rights without fear,”

Advocate Noellë Lewis explained some of the perils renters face that can land them in eviction proceedings: “I’ve done the scraping of the scraps and I’ve done the praying,” Lewis said. “It could be a missed check a couple days work missed because you’re sick or need to take care of a child and then right there your debt to income ratio has skyrocketed exponentially because you’re having to choose between buying food and putting gas in the car to work some more to be in stress about paying rent or getting evicted this month.”

The Arizona Republic highlighted that the current Tenant Eviction Assistance Project (TEAP), was created during the pandemic and funded with federal funding, but that funding will expire in December 2025.  However, the city applied to HUD’s Eviction Protection Grant Program to provide additional funding for the program.  The program is vitally needed: according to Scott Davis, the Maricopa County Justice Courts spokesperson, “Landlords filed petitions for more than 83,000 evictions in Maricopa County in 2023. Last month’s filings were the second highest monthly level in history. The filing are more than 20% higher overall than what we saw in the year before the pandemic.”