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Housing advocates are working to connect Cleveland residents facing eviction with resources and legal representation as courts continue hearings.

The Legal Aid Society has helped about 29 people facing eviction since launching Cleveland鈥檚 Right to Counsel initiative last month, according to managing attorney Abigail Staudt.

The pandemic has exacerbated the existing crisis in housing affordability across the city, Staudt said.

鈥淲e now are facing a much larger number of people that are housing unstable,鈥� she said, 鈥渁nd many of those folks had stable income, stable jobs, hadn鈥檛 faced evictions before.鈥�

Under the Right to Counsel program, low-income residents with at least one child can receive free legal representation from during eviction proceedings. The housing court communicates the options to residents facing eviction, Staudt said, and can grant a continuance to those who ask to enroll at their initial hearing.

鈥淥ur first priority is to assess the case, assign a case to an attorney, identify the amount owed and what rent assistance program would be most suitable for that tenant,鈥� Staudt said.

Those arrangements often must be made within a few days, she said.

鈥淲e鈥檙e scrambling in many cases, which we anticipated, because there are a number of cases where the tenant doesn鈥檛 come to us until a day or two before their hearing,鈥� Staudt said, 鈥渙r they鈥檝e gone to the court, and the court has granted them a continuance to seek Legal Aid鈥檚 assistance.鈥�

A majority of the cases the Legal Aid Society has helped with were the result of tenants struggling to pay rent during the pandemic, Staudt said.

鈥淚t鈥檚 pretty typical for an eviction to be based on non-payment of rent when there isn鈥檛 a pandemic,鈥� Staudt said. 鈥淣ow that we have a pandemic, it鈥檚 even more prevalent.鈥�

Local housing courts saw a spike of eviction filings when they began reopening in June, Staudt said, though it was lower than expected after the months-long moratorium. Case numbers leveled out to normal rates after a few days, Staudt said, but she anticipates more cases are forthcoming.

鈥淲e sort of are anticipating another spike in evictions, and it might be a slow spike but I do think they鈥檙e going to go up,鈥� Staudt said, particularly as additional unemployment and other CARES Act protections expire.

鈥淜nowing the number of people who are unemployed and how slow our economy is still, I just don鈥檛 see how we can deal with the number of people who are housing unstable and facing eviction during the pandemic,鈥� Staudt said.