The Seattle Instances has revealed a number of items on the subject of Washington’s tenant right-to-counsel regulation, whether or not lamenting the shortcomings or exploring the difficulty from the tenant counsel perspective. As somebody who has been representing housing suppliers within the area since 2011, I wish to share one other perspective.
The regulation will not be stopping evictions. It’s stretching them out. And it’s doing so as a result of the state selected to fund legal professionals somewhat than hire help.
At its core, the eviction course of is ugly and ought to be thought-about a final resort. Tenants going through eviction are sometimes doing so amid a litany of extra unenviable issues. In its current kind, the eviction course of yields no actual winners, save for presumably the attorneys concerned. In concept, giving tenants attorneys ranges the enjoying subject. Nobody disputes that authorized assist issues. However the state constructed a system that treats eviction as a authorized puzzle to be solved in court docket somewhat than an financial disaster to be solved with help funds.
Speak to small landlords across the state and also you’ll hear the identical story. Instances stretch upward of a 12 months or longer. Hearings are continued many times. Attorneys file motions that do nothing to resolve the truth that the tenant can not pay the hire and has no practical path to doing so. Debt accumulates and the tenant doesn’t concentrate on transferring to a extra practical housing scenario for his or her finances.
In the meantime, the housing supplier absorbs months of losses along with their authorized charges. In my world, these aren’t firms with deep reserves. They’re small mom-and-pop housing suppliers creating inexpensive housing alternatives for households in our communities; they’re the spine of the area’s family-suitable rental inventory, and plenty of are actually deciding it’s merely not value it. When small landlords promote their properties or go away the rental market totally, the area’s already strained housing provide tightens additional. That drives rents up for everybody — the very reverse of what lawmakers supposed. I wrote about this in a Seattle Times op-ed 5 years in the past, and simply final week The Seattle Instances began conducting a survey on the premise that single-family rental housing within the metropolis is turning into “more and more uncommon.” Hate to say I informed you so!
Authorized illustration is essential. Nevertheless it can’t be the centerpiece of Washington’s eviction‑prevention technique. It ought to be a safeguard, not the complete system. Attorneys ought to be held to larger requirements, be required to correctly vet their shoppers, and be known as out for his or her fixed delay ways. This technique, by the use of organizations resembling Housing Justice Mission, shouldn’t be propping up the likes of Sang Kim in Bellevue, who famously averted eviction and paying hire for 2 years regardless of getting into his lease with an revenue of over $30,000 per thirty days. Tax {dollars} (sure, your tax {dollars}) funded his legal defense. Is that this the sort of one who ought to be receiving intensive public help?
If lawmakers redirected even a portion of the cash at the moment spent on prolonged litigation right into a devoted, ongoing rental help fund, far fewer circumstances would ever attain a courtroom. Tenants would keep housed. Housing suppliers would keep solvent. A tenant help program within the type of House Bill 1099 can be a superb place to start out. For these circumstances that do find yourself in court docket, passage of HB 1089 (tenant security & eviction reform) can be very helpful. (Each payments had been filed in 2025.)
The appropriate‑to‑counsel regulation was constructed on the assumption that justice requires illustration. However justice additionally requires pragmatism. Washington can not litigate its method out of a housing disaster. It should pursue the options that promote housing provide and provides tenants in want a simpler serving to hand.
