The Right to Counsel: a moral imperative for Jersey City

Originally published on NJ.com: The right to counsel: A moral imperative for Jersey City

They say home is where the heart is. Jersey City is the home for those who stood up against Airbnb. It needs to now brace itself for the incoming housing crisis.

Jersey City currently has some of the most affordable units available in the region. However, there’s something lacking for its most vulnerable residents: a right to counsel for renters. New York City was the first city to enact a right to counsel a few years ago. What a right to counsel does is that is provides tenants the right to an attorney during housing court procedures.

A right to counsel has been passed in Newark, Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Boulder, Louisville, Denver, Minneapolis, Kansas City, New Orleans, the states of Connecticut, Washington and Maryland, and yet Jersey City doesn’t have such a right.

According to the Legal Aid Society, in New York City, 84% of tenants who went to housing court with the afforded lawyer were able to avoid eviction. Right to counsel avoids the situations that come with evictions, too. That can include, of course, homelessness but also issues with employment, healthcare and finding future housing with an eviction record. They say when rent goes up by $100 the eviction rate goes up by 9%. Jersey City – if not already here – is going to be soon.

Black female tenants are twice as likely to experience eviction than white tenants, according to theroot.com. In Hudson County, 46% of homeless people are Black/African American and there were around 860 homeless people reported around 2019. The number has certainly increased with COVID-19, the end of the eviction moratorium and with increasing inflation, household costs and a lack of good-paying union jobs.

A right to counsel is a moral imperative for Jersey City, and a smart one for saving the city money in the long run. Philadelphia found that it’s $3.5 million invested in securing the right to counsel would yield $45 million in savings in other areas.

It’s also important the services be appropriated not by footing the expense to taxpayers but to specifically landlords with funding like through the rental registration fee.

Cities have found that when a right to counsel was on the books evictions decreased. Landlords are less likely to evict when they know their tenants will be represented.

This is about fairness and shifting the power dynamic in Jersey City. This city owes it to its most vulnerable tenants to do all it can to protect them amid skyrocketing housing costs. A right to counsel would be very helpful to low income people and people of color – especially Black/African Americans who have made up far too many of the homeless for so long.

Housing should not be a commodity to be traded and speculated on, but a basic human right. A right to counsel places us in the right direction.

Carlos Rojas is a resident of Jersey City.