About the Guide

We’re working toward a future where every person has a safe and affordable home. Many pieces need to be put in place to achieve this future, and one of them is that tenants have a right to counsel when their home is threatened. 

There are many forms this threat can take: tenants facing discrimination when trying to rent a home, or harassment after renting a home, having a landlord who refuses to make repairs that are needed to make the home safe, or being served with eviction papers.  As a starting point, the housing right to counsel movement has focused on tenants who are facing eviction, and while eliminating evictions is the ultimate goal, tenants must have a right to counsel in eviction cases (what we call “eviction RTC” in this Guide) as long as evictions exist.

Eviction RTC is an evidence-based approach that promotes actual systems change.  It enables tenants to enforce their rights and many of the most basic human needs that may be threatened by eviction (shelter, health, child custody, employment, etc.) while helping to enforce the laws that have been passed to protect them.  It helps to redistribute power.  It works towards restoring confidence in the justice system.  It advances race equity by providing one form of relief to Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities disproportionately harmed by, and entangled in, a civil justice system rooted in systemic racism.  It advances long-term fiscal responsibility for jurisdictions.  And it can lead to changes in the way the eviction system itself operates, such as courts treating tenants with respect, landlords turning less frequently to the courts immediately when a tenant falls behind in rent, and legal services programs identifying and addressing systemic problems with the eviction process and gaps in the law.

As of February 2025, 18 cities, 2 counties, and 5 states have an eviction RTC law. This is a huge change from less than a decade ago when no tenant anywhere in the U.S. had such a right.  It is a testament to the incredible work of tenant leaders and organizers, as well as legal services programs, community-based organizations, academics, and elected officials. 

About the NCCRC 

At the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel (NCCRC), our mission is to ensure individuals have a right to effective counsel when facing the loss of their basic human needs in the civil legal system. In the eviction RTC space, we provide technical assistance, training, and support for legislative, litigation, and social science efforts to advocates in cities, counties, and states working to advance and/or implement the eviction RTC.  We also host a variety of national working groups, develop public materials, present at a variety of conferences and webinars, conduct educational training sessions, testify in support of legislation, and maintain our website as the preeminent source of civil right to counsel information in the country. The NCCRC is a project of the Public Justice Center. We encourage you to stay informed about the national civil RTC movement and our work.

About Our Tenant RTC Team

Why and How Did We Create the Guide?

This Guide is designed to set out a roadmap from the very beginning of thinking about an eviction right to counsel through implementation of an enacted law, as well as answer questions we frequently hear.  The Guide is useful for advocates at all stages of the process.

Over the last 10 years we’ve supported 150+ jurisdictions working on eviction RTC laws (including the jurisdictions that have already enacted such a right), and this has helped us gain a lot of information worth sharing.  Also,  we collaborated with New York Law School and the Goodwin Law Firm to interview key stakeholders in eviction RTC jurisdictions. Through all of this, we’ve collected important insights, key lessons, and other important tips and tools that we wanted to share with the broader network of individuals and groups working to advance eviction RTC.