ST. LOUIS — A city plan to pay private lawyers to represent thousands of people facing eviction may end up helping far fewer.
Only one area law firm, the nonprofit Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, has applied to run the program. And lawyers there say they can handle only a tiny portion of what officials were hoping to see during the two-year trial period.
Part of the problem is money: The city only allocated $685,000, about a fifth of the funding envisioned by the architects of the initiative. Even then, city officials thought they had enough to cover full legal representation for about 600 cases.
But in a letter sent to the city last week, Legal Services said if it has to follow the letter of the new law, it can only cover 135.
That math could spell a setback for a program touted as a centerpiece of liberal leaders’ efforts to bolster protections for renters in the city, who make up roughly 55% of city households. Mayor Tishaura O. Jones and Aldermanic President Megan Green have cast the program as critical to keeping families in their homes and off the streets, and ultimately making neighborhoods safer for everyone.
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But the program was pitched as help for thousands, not dozens.
In comments and statements in recent days, backers cast the estimates as growing pains.
“The first iteration of this proposal is serving as a proof of concept,†Jones said in a statement to the Post-Dispatch, “and I’m happy that we’ll be able to make a significant impact on the lives of those who need it most.â€
Cristina Garmendia, Green’s policy director, said she was disappointed by the numbers but remained committed to making the program work. Even if it costs $5,000 per case instead of $1,000 to keep a family in their home, she said, it’s still cheaper than paying for homeless services and new housing.
“That’s a bargain,†she said.
But Alderwoman Sharon Tyus, the only person to vote against the plan at the board, said the estimates validated her objections to getting involved in the eviction prevention business.
“I told them this was not a good idea,†Tyus, a landlord and an attorney, said of the bill’s supporters. “They don’t know what they’re doing.â€
Daniel Glazier, Legal Services’ executive director, declined comment.
The program is supposed to be straightforward. For decades, the government has been required to provide attorneys for criminal defendants at risk of losing their freedom. And now, with rents spiking and affordable housing in short supply in cities across the country, progressive leaders want that guarantee of legal representation extended to people at risk of losing their homes.
New York and San Francisco adopted the idea first, in 2017 and 2018, respectively. But when the pandemic hit, rising inflation and widespread concerns about a coming “tsunami†of evictions supercharged the movement for tenants’ rights and spread out calls for change.
Nearly a dozen more cities — from pricey, fast-growing Seattle and Denver to more humble locales such as Kansas City and Louisville, Kentucky — joined the bandwagon over the next few years.
Then last year, bolstered by a new, more liberal Board of Aldermen, ºüÀêÊÓƵ followed suit.
Aldermen laid out goals of covering about 1,000 clients, at a cost of $1.3 million, in the first year, and growing each year thereafter. The ideal situation saw the city serving 4,500 clients by 2028, at a cost of $5.1 million.
Advocates cheered the plan, noting that evictions make it harder for people to work, take care of children and live their lives without constant stress. One expert called the proposal “life-saving.â€
But the city only appropriated a fraction of the money envisioned for the program in the original bill. They thought the cash they had would go further. And now it appears there’s no additional money coming in the budget for upcoming fiscal year, which starts July 1.
City officials are bracing to lose as much as $26 million in earnings and payroll taxes amid challenges from state Republican lawmakers and lawsuits winding their way through the courts, and sacrifices are already in order: Spending will be flat after rising at a healthy clip over the past two years. A string of across-the-board raises for city workers will end. Dozens of empty jobs will be frozen.
Legal Services, in its bid to the city, acknowledged the shortfall.
It said it could compensate, by “triaging.†Its lawyers might, for instance, help a tenant prepare documents for a court hearing where the tenant would then represent themselves. That would make it possible to work on 520 cases in two years, Legal Services said.
But if the city insisted on paying for only “full legal representation,†as stipulated in the bill, the caseload would be drastically reduced.
A city panel on Thursday greenlit negotiations.
An official said there could be more money for the eviction lawyers program in the future, though.
Conner Kerrigan, the mayor’s press secretary, said it depends on how the pilot program goes.
“If this goes well,†he wrote in an email, “I imagine the City will want to find ways to expand it.â€