By Steven Ortega
Stanford Law, 2L

This summer, support from Equal Justice America allowed me to pursue a legal services fellowship with East Bay Community Law Center’s Housing Unit, defending low-income tenants from eviction in Alameda County. 

Did you know that in landlord/tenant cases, more than 4 out of every 5 tenants do not have legal counsel?

Research shows that more than 3.6 million eviction cases were filed in state courts in 2018 alone. This means that roughly 6% of renting households were threatened with eviction in the year before the COVID-19 pandemic began. 

COVID-19 pandemic led policymakers at all levels of government to briefly arrest the judicial system’s drive to process eviction cases as quickly as possible. I saw first-hand how Alameda County’s eviction moratorium affected the clients I worked with and the practice of direct legal service in housing law. The Eviction Lab found that the various moratoria were highly effective, lessening eviction filings to 65% below the historical average while in effect between March 15 and December 31, 2020.   

This does not mean that any moratorium entirely prevented evictions from proceeding. The CDC’s moratorium had significant loopholes, such as allowing evictions to proceed when a tenant’s lease period was over. Alameda County’s moratorium is more comprehensive than the CDC moratorium was, but still formally allows evictions under two circumstances.    

First, if a tenant is alleged to present an “imminent threat to health and safety” for neighboring residents, the County’s eviction moratorium allows their landlord to begin an eviction proceeding. Secondly, California’s “Ellis Act” allows landlords and their relatives to move into a unit and start an eviction proceeding against the existing tenants if they do not vacate.

Legal aid organizations like EBCLC played a critical role in enforcing eviction moratoria to prevent tenants from being erroneously evicted under a given moratorium’s exceptions. 

For example, I assisted with successfully challenging an eviction based on alleged threats to health and safety at trial. The time that tenants are given to respond to eviction notices is a barrier. In California, tenants have only five days to respond to an evictions summons and complaint or receive a default judgement against them. While this is actually longer than eviction actions in many other states, it gives tenants precious little time to read complaints that often run more than 60 pages (and only in English), let alone seek legal assistance or make a response. As such, many clients come to EBCLC having already accrued a default judgement or even a sheriff’s notice to vacate.  

I worked with a client who had an eviction filed against him while he was incarcerated and unable to respond. By the time I was able to meet with the client, now homeless, that left me and my supervisor only a single day to prepare a stay of execution. Luckily, our team was able to drop everything and work through the night to prepare the stay – after waiting with the client for more than 3 hours at a county courthouse, the stay was granted.  

The impact of EBCLC’s work is immense. One of the memories I’ll always carry with me from this experience occurred during my first weeks on the job. While observing my supervising attorney not only go to a jury trial for a client but win them the right to remain in their childhood home, is what motivates me to pursue this work.  

I’m grateful to EJA’s fellowship program for giving law students like myself an opportunity to engage with direct legal services.