Right-to-counsel program reduces likelihood of eviction

As rent payments consume an increasing share of household income, a new Kansas City, Mo., program that provides free legal representation to tenants facing eviction has been shown to reduce the likelihood of such tenants losing their homes.

The study, published in the Journal of Urban Affairs, was led by WashU Bursky School of Public Health postdoctoral researcher Yi Wang, PhD, and was co-authored by Caitlin McMurtry, PhD, a Brown School assistant professor, and Hye-Sung Han, PhD, an associate professor at the University of Kansas.

While tenant right-to-counsel (RTC) laws have existed in the U.S. since before the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic disruptions of the pandemic prompted several jurisdictions to pass right-to-counsel laws as renters faced rising costs and the detrimental effects of eviction on their lives and health. Kansas City was among them and launched its program in June 2022.

“During the pandemic years, eviction prevention started to be considered more as a public health intervention, and right-to-counsel legislation really began to gain momentum,” Wang said. “Eviction is a social determinant of health. If you get evicted, that’s associated with a series of adverse health outcomes such as increased risk of depression, poorer self-reported health, and higher mortality rates.”

Kansas City is among five states, 17 cities, and one county in the U.S. that passed such laws from July 2017 through June 2024, providing free legal counsel to qualifying tenants facing eviction. The city of St. Louis launched a similar program in August 2024, but the program has struggled after receiving a fraction of its proposed funding.

Despite the increasing number of RTC programs, data on their impact has been lacking. Wang’s study investigated eviction court outcomes from 2018 through 2024 using a design that compared outcomes in Kansas City with two demographically similar neighboring municipalities before and after the program’s implementation. 

Landlords file for eviction for various reasons, including failure to pay rent and lease violations, but in some instances without a specific cause. Evictions can limit tenants’ future rental options, and families often end up living in worse neighborhoods. Evictions also are associated with increased homelessness, hospitalizations, and risk of adverse birth outcomes.

Tenants tend to face a stark imbalance in legal representation as they navigate complex and rapid eviction proceedings. In Kansas City before the pandemic, as few as 3% of tenants had legal counsel, compared with 85% of landlords having such counsel — a disparity that mirrors national trends. From 2006 to 2016, 99% of eviction cases filed in Jackson County, where Kansas City is located, were ruled in favor of the landlord. Tenants often did not attend their court hearings because they couldn’t take time off work or they believed their cases were unwinnable, resulting in default judgments favoring landlords.

Wang’s study found that the percentage of tenants with legal representation tripled from 6.4% before Kansas City’s right-to-counsel program was implemented (January 2018 to November 2021) to 20% after (June 2022 to May 2024). The percentage of eviction filings ending in default judgments dropped from 45.9% to 37.5%, and the percentage ending in eviction judgments decreased from 60.7% to 50.9%. 

The neighboring communities of Grandview, Mo., and Raytown, Mo., also saw drops in judgments against tenants, though not as large. Researchers’ interviews with attorneys revealed that the two communities likely experienced benefits from the Kansas City program, such as improved judicial education on tenants’ rights. The creation of the Missouri Tenant Help website, and rent relief and assistance programs also likely impacted eviction rates.

The study also found that legal service providers did not have enough staff to meet the high demand for representation, highlighting the need for more funding and resources. Leaders in Kansas City have responded by allocating the program $2.6 million for both the 2026 and 2027 fiscal years. Kansas City’s fiscal year begins May 1. 

Wang, who previously studied housing instability and eviction in Minnesota and Oregon before joining the WashU Prevention Research Center’s People, Health & Place Unit, said other key efforts must include addressing the housing crisis and providing programs to help households through hardships such as job loss or medical emergencies.

“Just passing (right-to-counsel) laws is not enough,” Wang said. “Cities or states that pass those laws also need to ensure that there is sufficient funding to staff up the legal aid organizations and address the core problem of people falling behind on rent. That means you need to have other programs such as emergency rent assistance and more affordable housing to protect tenants in a comprehensive way when there is increasing rent burden.

“That ecosystem is core to ensuring low-income renter households can stay stably housed and avoid the risk of eviction.”

Wang Y, McMurtry C, Han HS. Investigating the impact of Kansas City’s tenant right to counsel program on eviction court outcomes. Journal of Urban Affairs. May 11, 2026. DOI: 10.1080/07352166.2026.2658609

The authors report no funding.

Michele Munz is a freelance journalist with 30 years of news-writing experience. She spent 28 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, mostly covering health and medicine.