Toledo City Councilmen Nick Komives and Theresa Gadus formally introduced their Tenants’ Right to Counsel bill during a council meeting Tuesday.
The bill seeks to allocate $250,000 annually from unappropriated funds toward Legal Aid of Western Ohio, which would use the funds to hire more lawyers and provide legal assistance to Toledo residents with incomes at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty level.
Council referred the proposal to its Neighborhoods, Community Development, and Health committee so other solutions and the budgetary impact can be reviewed, but it can now be added to the meeting agenda for a vote likely to be held Sept. 2. The legislation was previously described in The Blade’s two-part eviction series.
In introducing the legislation, Mr. Komives referenced the “looming eviction crisis” and called the bill “one piece to a puzzle” of policies the city should implement to help protect renters and landlords, such as mortgage and rental assistance.
He added that the right-to-counsel legislation is not a new idea and community stakeholders, such as the Fair Housing Center, LAWO, Lucas Metropolitan Housing, and landlords had worked with him to craft the policy since December.
Some council members, including Katie Moline and Rob Ludeman, hesitated about moving forward with the legislation. Ms. Moline noted that Toledo has other policies in place, such as rental assistance, and asked why legislation did not focus on bolstering those areas.
“Council is preemptively picking winners and losers in civil proceedings,” she said while also asking to see a budget estimate before the legislation comes to a vote.
Mr. Ludeman cited conversations with landlords indicating that tenants who are using the current eviction moratorium to evade paying rent might also take advantage of the additional funds.
“People are always going to take advantage of something,” Mr. Komives responded. “But not everybody is doing that. When you have representation, you’re more likely to have a better outcome on both sides.
“The [legal] system is very complicated,” he added, noting that the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution enshrines legal representation for those in criminal cases. “All of us know that we should get a lawyer if we’re able to.”
Councilperson Sam Melden considered this to be Mr. Komives’ most powerful argument supporting the bill.
“Our country really does believe in legal representation,” he said. “When you see a piece of our judicial system that does not uphold that value, we have a job to do.”
Mr. Komives said he plans to bring in housing experts who helped him craft the bill to testify before council when the proposal comes back before the full body next month. The public will also be allowed to speak.
First Published August 10, 2021, 10:14 p.m.
