Cleveland City Council passed legislation on October 12 authorizing a city contract with the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland to keep providing free legal representation to low-income tenants facing eviction, and in the process boosted funding for the program from $750,000 to $1.25 million. The increase comes even as several council members pressed for clearer answers about whether the program, known as Right to Counsel, is actually working as intended.
City Council passed the legislation on Monday, according to Cleveland.com, which reported the funding increase and the council committee debate behind it. Right to Counsel provides free housing court representation to Cleveland tenants who have at least one child and household income at or below the federal poverty line, a partnership between the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland and United Way of Greater Cleveland in which Legal Aid represents tenants in court while United Way supports the program's broader operations.
The eligibility rules trace back to Cleveland Codified Ordinance § 375.12, which council passed in October 2019 and which took effect on July 1, 2020, according to the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland. That made Cleveland the fourth U.S. city, and the first in the Midwest, to adopt a right-to-counsel law for eviction cases, per the same account.
Council Wants Harder Numbers on Who's Actually Being Helped
During the committee meeting, Councilman Blaine Griffin said tenants who went to housing court without lawyers were more likely to be evicted, framing the program as a direct response to that imbalance, the station's report notes. Griffin also said the program had handled 5,370 eviction cases involving about 18,940 residents, per figures cited by Arin Miller-Tait, but he told colleagues the council needs more detail about those cases, including how many tenants ultimately avoided eviction altogether.
Councilman Brian Kazy pressed for a basic definition of what it means for a tenant to be served by the program, asking whether that includes legal advice, filing assistance, or full court representation. Councilman Joe Jones, meanwhile, questioned whether evictions in Cleveland are rising or falling, a question that independent eviction-tracking data has already begun to answer separately from the council debate.
A Councilman's Frustration With Getting Help for Constituents
Jones also criticized what he described as the difficulty of getting Legal Aid assistance for his constituents, saying he contacted the organization several times during 2026 and visited its offices three times while trying to help residents facing eviction. Among those residents were people who were seriously ill, including people with cancer, Jones said, according to Cleveland.com's account of the meeting. He said he did not know whether the trouble stemmed from a breakdown in the process or simply from employees being unavailable to assist.
Griffin responded by saying he would arrange a meeting between Jones and Legal Aid representatives to review the intake process and establish a direct point of contact going forward. The exchange underscored a tension running through the committee session: lawmakers seeking clearer outcome data on one hand while describing frustrating, hands-on experiences trying to connect constituents with help on the other.
Independent Evaluation Points to Strong Results
That outcome data comes from a multi-year evaluation by consulting firm Stout Risius Ross, released in February 2026, which found Right to Counsel generated an estimated $44.7 million in cumulative economic and fiscal benefits for Cleveland and Cuyahoga County between July 2020 and December 2025, according to United Way of Greater Cleveland. Evaluators calculated those benefits based on avoided municipal costs for emergency shelters, foster care, and public safety.
The same evaluation found that 85% of tenants avoided disruptive displacement, and that only 7% of clients served since 2020 needed repeat legal assistance, per the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland. Before the program launched, just 2% to 3% of tenants in Cleveland eviction cases had any legal representation at all, compared to roughly 15% to 16% across all landlord-tenant cases after implementation, the organization's results page notes.
Filings Are Climbing, and the Program's Reach Is Narrow
Those gains are unfolding against a backdrop of rising eviction activity. Princeton University's Eviction Lab recorded 3,299 eviction filings in Cleveland through July 2026, a 10% increase compared to average filing levels during the same period in 2023 and 2024, according to the Eviction Lab. The rising filing count underscores the continuing pressure of eviction activity on Cleveland renter households.
Right to Counsel's eligibility is deliberately narrow, limited to households with at least one child and income at or below the federal poverty line. A national review published in June 2026 by the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel found that this narrower threshold has actually helped Cleveland meet local client demand more effectively than broader income mandates adopted in other cities, several of which have struggled with attorney staffing shortages. The same coalition documented that Cleveland's program covers only “first cause” hearings concerning unit possession, and does not extend to “second cause” money judgment claims or tenant counterclaims over substandard housing conditions — meaning tenants facing back-rent demands or code-violation disputes must seek help elsewhere.
A Changing Courtroom and a Separate Funding Delay
The housing court where these cases are heard has also seen significant upheaval. Administrative Judge Cheryl M. Wiltshire took office after defeating former judge W. Moná Scott in the November 2025 election, following state disciplinary complaints accusing Scott of improperly delaying eviction cases, according to Signal Cleveland. Separately, the court's Housing Division issued an administrative order in January 2026 revoking two local filing rules that had previously required landlords to prove compliance with municipal rental registration before filing an eviction, according to N.P. Weiss Law.
Council's scrutiny of Right to Counsel's intake process echoes concerns raised about a separate pot of tenant-assistance money. City Hall's stalled renter fund — a $1 million American Rescue Plan Act grant approved by council in January 2025 for tenant outreach and eviction diversion — took 387 days for the contract to arrive, Hoodline previously reported. Taken together, the two episodes suggest that even well-funded tenant protections in Cleveland can run into bureaucratic friction long after the money is approved.
