The pandemic highlighted and exacerbated an ongoing affordable rental housing and eviction crisis in the US, leading some local and state governments to enact relatively unprecedented eviction prevention strategies. Tenant Right to Counsel Programs are one of these strategies. The programs provide tenants facing an eviction with access to legal counsel. In March of 2020, only 5 cities had Right to Counsel Programs in place. By July 2023, 17 cities, 4 states, and one county had adopted RTC, and dozens more were in the works. As RTC is expanded and scaled up, it is critical to examine not only the overall impact of RTC, but also the ways that variation across RTC policies and contexts shape impacts for tenants and other stakeholders. Understanding variation in the way RTC policies develop, are designed, and are implemented can help inform more effective and equitable policies that work to mitigate evictions and their harmful consequences.
For this project we are interviewing 40 New Haven residents about their experiences providing housing to friends and or family members who are unable to access or afford their own housing. We seek to understand the impact of such arrangements on the health and wellbeing of those providing housing.