The measure was originally raised in 2021 by Housing Justice Now, a local housing rights group, when evictions spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a council candidates forum hosted by HJN on Feb. 15, 12 candidates agreed to support the ordinance, which has an estimated price of $1.2 million a year, a projection made by Isaac Sturgill of Legal Aid of North Carolina.

Dan Rose, an HJN member, describes the ordinance as allowing a universal right to legal counsel, contrasting with the residency, jurisdictional and income eligibility requirements of the Legal Aid.

Rose also said that the city should consider the ordinance as an investment and that it would end up saving money for the city and Forsyth County in the long run.

“When we ask for people to support the funding, you have to understand the fact that it’s an investment,” Rose said. “The community as a whole will save money if you invest in a right to counsel. Schools save money when folks are housed and stable.”

This latest push for the ordinance comes after emergency COVID-19 pandemic funding from the federal government has ended. Forsyth County’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) is over, and Winston-Salem has only allotted $100,000 per year for the employment of one staff attorney from Legal Aid of North Carolina to represent Winston-Salem tenants facing eviction.

The city currently has an unspent balance of $107,309.86 for the program, according to Winston-Salem’s budget director Scott Tesh.

For reference, there are anywhere from 10,000 to 12,000 eviction hearings each year in Winston-Salem, according to HJN. Legal Aid was only able to represent 269 Winston-Salem eviction cases in 2020 with their staff, according to Sturgill.

During the pandemic, Forsyth County did provide some form of help to renters facing eviction by sending social services staffers to small claims court.

County DSS staff members would help tenants apply for ERAP financial aid, which often helped put evictions on hold. That ended when Chief District Court Judge Victoria Roemer banned in-court DSS help for tenants and refused the county’s request to resume the program.

When asked about Forsyth County’s current capacity for rental assistance, the County’s Department of Social Services Director Christa Smith pointed to Winston-Salem as the lead source for housing and supportive housing programs.

“Unfortunately, (the county’s) capacity is rather limited,” Smith said. “While the county participates, we’re not the lead agency.”

Smith said that both the county and the city ARPA funds for emergency rental assistance are “exhausted” at this point. She also added that the county’s rental assistance is capped at $600 annually per family, which is “unlikely to do a lot” for someone facing eviction.

All the candidates who attended HJN’s Feb. 15 forum except for D.D. Adams, the incumbent North Ward councilmember running for re-election, said that they supported the ordinance allowing free legal counsel to renters facing eviction, with many saying that they believe it should be an annual line item in the city’s budget.

Three incumbent councilmembers running for re-election, Annette Scippio, Barbara Burke, and James Taylor Jr. were not at the forum and have not yet officially discussed the ordinance.

When asked about her perspective on the ordinance, Scippio said Tuesday that she “does not have a comment at this time.”

Burke and Taylor did not return repeated requests for comment from the Journal.

“I’ve been in the courtrooms with people when they’re about to be evicted,” said Phil Carter, who is running for the East Ward council seat. “I know that when you go in the courtroom and you’re not a lawyer, you have no chance. No chance at all.”

Carter added that state legislators should create an expungement process for those wrongly evicted so that they don’t have strikes on their background when applying for future housing.

Adams did not say whether she was for or against the ordinance but instead said that the city should seek federal funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

When asked to clarify her position on the measure, Adams did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.

“I never thought that it was appropriate for anyone to be in those places in a courtroom without a lawyer unless they were involved with small claims,” said Bob Hartwell, a former labor attorney and Superior Court judge from Vermont running for the Northwest Ward seat. “That was the only time it was possibly satisfactory for someone to do it on their own.”

Hartwell mentioned his proposal for a municipal bond which is based on a $95 million Durham housing bond which included a provision for eviction diversion.

“If we let these evictions go forward haphazardly, you’ll probably aggravate the homelessness problem,” Hartwell said in a later interview with the Journal on March 1.

Regina Hall, a candidate for the Northwest Ward, said that she supports the idea of the ordinance but said that it should be a line-item in the budget only.

“The county has to match what the city does,” Hall said. “I don’t know if $1.2 million is enough but I know that the county needs to match everything.”

Housing Justice Now is advocating for an ordinance that would be universal to all residents facing eviction, in contrast to the various eligibility requirements of Legal Aid of NC.

Legal Aid services are only available to families whose earned income is under 125% of the federal poverty level. For example, a family of three cannot have an income above $25,975, and a family of four cannot have an income above $31,375.

Legal Aid can also only serve those documented to live in the U.S., something Rose says can exclude those who need help.

“There are a lot of people who get left out currently,” Rose said. “They turn down folks who are just above the poverty line.”

National data shows that 90% of landlords are represented by lawyers in evictions, but fewer than 10% of tenants have representation.

If tenants can’t attend court because of work, childcare, or transportation issues, a lawyer could represent them in their place.

Civil court records also show up on families’ records when looking for future safe and affordable housing, even if they won the eviction proceeding.

In a 2021 presentation to Winston-Salem’s Eviction Diversion Network, a group of organizations dedicated to assisting renters facing eviction, Sturgill compared a potential right to counsel program to an existing effort in Milwaukee, which averages 3,000 to 4,000 more evictions per year than Winston-Salem.

Similar programs in major American cities have recorded high ratings of success. In New York City, 84% of represented tenants have able to remain in their homes according to a 2021 report from NYC’s Office of Civil Justice.

According to Sturgill, $1.2 million then would pay salary and benefits for a team of 2 supervising attorneys, 12 staff attorneys, and 4 paralegals in Winston-Salem, translating to a projection of 1,000 to 1,200 families helped.