Winston-Salem tenants need a Right to Counsel!
Winston-Salem has the 16th-highest eviction rate in the nation. We need to be doing all we can to prevent needless eviction and displacement, and to prevent potential homelessness.
Eviction court proceedings are often skewed to favor landlords, and 90% of landlords are represented by legal counsel in evictions, but fewer than 10% of tenants have legal representation.
On top of that, tenants often lack the ability to go to court due to employment, child care, or transportation restrictions and automatically lose. If tenants were guaranteed access to legal counsel, their lawyer could go to court even if they can't. Most defenses that are available to a tenant are virtually impossible to prove without a lawyer anyway.
A fully funded program guaranteeing the right to legal counsel for tenants in Winston-Salem would substantially reduce the number of people evicted and help prevent additional homelessness in our community.
