New York, NY

The nation's first RTC!

The Right to Counsel NYC Coalition is a tenant-led, broad-based coalition that formed in 2014 to disrupt Housing Court as a center of displacement and stop the eviction crisis. After a 3 year grassroots campaign, we became the first city in the country to establish a Right to Counsel for tenants facing eviction. We believe RTC is about fighting to reclaim our city to keep people in their homes and to de-normalize the violence of evictions. We are building campaigns for an eviction-free NYC and ultimately for a right to housing.

Boulder, CO

The No Eviction Without Representation (NEWR) Measure was passed by City of Boulder voters in 2018. It created a program to provide universal legal representation and rent assistance for city residents experiencing eviction. The program is funded by an excise tax on landlords within the city, at $75 per rental unit. While run by the city, the program also contains a tenant committee of five members, who must be renters within the city. Committee members receive a stipend of $1000 per year.

San Francisco, CA

The tenant right to counsel had been a dream of tenant organizers in SF for decades, who had passed strong tenant protections in the city, but often saw tenants move anyway, due to lack of representation in court. This campaign also took place during the largest wave of gentrification and rising rents that San Francisco had ever seen. Additionally, the DSA chapter in SF provided ground troops- The chapter was re-started, and gained hundreds of members in reaction to the election of Donald Trump in 2016, and the chapter got involved in this measure as a meaningful way to address economic injustice in the city. Additionally, this campaign spoke to the membership itself, who was largely tenants themselves.