Eviction Defense for Poor Tenants: Costly Compassion or Justice Served?

Abstract

Eviction defense, one of the principal areas of housing advocacy in legal services offices throughout the country, strives to help poor tenants vindicate their rights and avoid the trauma and disruption, and possible descent into homelessness, which eviction can cause. Legal services attorneys are often able to defeat their clients' evictions or, if that is not possible, to delay their clients' evictions long enough to allow their clients to save money for, and move safely into, new housing. Some argue, however, that by vigorously defending poor tenants, legal services attorneys may significantly burden private landlords by delaying evictions and enabling the tenants to live rent-free during the pendency of their evictions.