By Heather Warlick, Oklahoma Watch
Oklahomans facing legal proceedings for a criminal complaint are guaranteed access to an attorney and offered free assistance if they cannot afford to pay for a lawyer.
In eviction court, no such guarantee is offered. Oklahoma tenants facing eviction most often arrive at their hearings without legal counsel, leaving them unarmed against landlords who bring attorneys up to 80% of the time.
With legal representation, tenants are far more likely to see a favorable result in eviction hearings. Research shows that in Oklahoma, tenants are 75% more likely to remain in their homes after an eviction filing when they are represented by an attorney.
Tenant advocates nationwide are pushing for tenant right-to-counsel laws. There are 17 cities and five states where free legal representation is mandated in eviction cases.
Oklahoma does not have right-to-counsel laws in place, but tenant-rights advocate groups such as Legal Aid Services Oklahoma work to advance the potential for Oklahoma tenants to secure laws to guarantee free counsel in eviction cases.
An innovative Oklahoma investing collaborative designed to provide access to funding for social service nonprofits in the state announced recently it will provide financial backing to Legal Aid Services Oklahoma’s Tenant Right-to-Counsel program, potentially saving millions in taxpayer dollars while helping to keep Oklahmans in their homes.
Oklahoma Impact Investing Collaborative will provide a low-interest loan to Legal Aid Services Oklahoma to underwrite LASO’s statewide efforts to provide free legal representation and counsel to tenants facing eviction hearings, or before eviction cases are filed in court.
The $2 million loan will pay for legal aid services for an estimated 1,800 Oklahomans, said LASO Executive Drector Michael Figgins.
Figgins said LASO is running out of money to pay for legal services for Oklahomans facing eviction.
“The money that we’ve relied on is pretty much gone,” Figgins said.
LASO has received most of its funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. When HUD grants funds for eviction prevention in Oklahoma, the money is generally split among LASO, the Oklahoma City University School of Law Housing Eviction Legal Assistance Program and Shelterwell, a nonprofit group that gathers and analyzes eviction data and provides mediators in eviction court, Figgins said.
OIIC is a social impact investment collaborative that combines money from philanthropies to provide loans such as the one LASO will receive.
OIIC is a subsidiary of MetaFund, a 501(c)3 community development financial institution, one of about 1,000 such institutions nationwide that combine money from private and public sector entities to invest in local communities to create economic opportunities.
MetaFund works with nine philanthropies to create funding streams for OIIC projects. OIIC also works with other nonprofits including Pivot and Remerge, which align with its focus areas, said OIIC president and co-founder, Ed Long.
Since its inception in February, 2020 OIIC has worked with 18 nonprofit agencies to provide more than $10 million in funding.
Oklahoma Evictions a Growing Problem
In Oklahoma, 48,278 eviction cases were filed by landlords in 2023. Of those, about half resulted in tenants being displaced from their homes. Many more tenants were likely evicted informally. Informal eviction occurs when tenants move out of their homes after receiving warnings or threats from their landlord without a claim ever being filed in court.
Evictions aren’t just a landlord and tenant problem, said Amy Coldren, executive director of Shelterwell. Ripple effects from eviction threats affect all Oklahomans.
Minors represent 40% of people affected by eviction and are at risk for long-lasting physical and emotional fallout as a consequence.
Coldren said evictions increase the likelihood that a tenant will lose their job by 22%. Evictions cause school absenteeism. They increase a tenant’s mortality rate, placing an increased burden on our healthcare system. Evictions weaken neighborhoods and communities, increase family separation, and place an enormous burden on taxpayers.
Research from LASO’s Stout Report shows the number of evictions filed in Oklahoma each year is on the rise but with legal help, about 95% of people who received free legal help achieved their goals, whether that amounted to staying in their homes or a different outcome.
The report was released after LASO performed a right-to-counsel pilot program from June, 2023 to June, 2004 in several Oklahoma City and Tulsa zip codes with the high eviction filings.
Stout estimated that Oklahoma County and Tulsa County realized economic benefits of $6.3 million from the right-to-counsel program between August 1, 2022 and June 5, 2024.
The positive results of the right-to-counsel pilot and an urgency for relief for Oklahomans facing evictions convinced the team at OIIC to take a deeper interest in funding Right-to-Counsel efforts, Long said.
Figgins said that many evictions can be prevented with early intervention from a qualified attorney.
Landlord errors are overlooked by county courts that handle as many as 387 cases in a day, especially when tenants face evictions alone.
LASO attorneys often find mistakes, Figgins said.
For example, certain laws apply to people who receive housing vouchers, known as Section 8, that don’t apply to people renting from private landlords who do not receive Section 8 subsidies.
“One of the first things a housing attorney like those at LASO does when examining a case is to determine what type of rental contract is at hand,” Figgins said.
If a landlord fails to serve eviction notices properly or evicts for illegal reasons or discrimination, attorneys are likely to catch those case-breaking flaws and help tenants keep their homes if that is their goal, Figgins said.
Ultimately, Long said, he hopes that the OIIC financing will encourage Oklahoma City and Tulsa to fund right-to-counsel programs.
Long said OIIC used recent media reports on evictions to illustrate to investors the need in Oklahoma for tenants to have access to legal assistance in court.
“We were able to use a lot of it when we went to our investors and said, ‘Hey, this is, this is a no-brainer,’” Long said. “Reporting on evictions is driving money, it’s driving interest.”
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
