‘ If I wouldn’t have had them, I would’ve been lost ’ : Tenant Right to Counsel in Cleveland

As eviction filings begin to surpass pre-pandemic levels and the consequences of eviction for health, well-being, and stability become increasingly recognized, legal assistance has emerged as a growing strategy to prevent evictions and their well-documented negative sequelae. Between July 2017 and December 2025, 27 U.S. jurisdictions passed right to counsel (RTC) legislation, formally establishing a right to legal counsel for tenants in eviction proceedings. While evaluations have quantified RTC’s impacts on representation rates, eviction filings and judgments, and health outcomes, qualitative data are needed to understand the processes through which these impacts occur and how local context shapes their effects. This paper addresses this gap by examining one of the longest standing RTC programs in the country, Cleveland RTC (RTC-CL), through qualitative interviews with tenants, attorneys, and other key RTC partners. We analyze how features of RTC-CL’s design, as well as the broader eviction ecosystem in which it operates, influence both tenant experiences and system-level impacts. Our findings offer important insights into RTC policy development and implementation efforts.