January 23, 2025
By Samira Nazem
Housing courts have long been viewed as places of last resort. They are typically overcrowded, under-resourced, and defined by their shortcomings and systemic power imbalances. Conventional wisdom suggests that if a landlord-tenant dispute ends up in court, it is too late to change its trajectory. What if, instead, housing court was not something negative for tenants, but worked in partnership with them? This is the question that the NCSC’s Eviction Diversion Initiative (EDI) set out to answer in collaboration with a network of 24 state and local courts.
Housing instability does not begin or end in state courts, but they are charged with authorizing evictions. Not every housing dispute results in eviction, and not every eviction case has to result in an eviction order. Preventing evictions when possible and minimizing their harm when not is the goal of each EDI site. Even when a tenant moves out, voluntarily or involuntarily, courts can reduce disruption and trauma by facilitating connections to resources.
With grant funding and technical assistance from NCSC, each EDI site designed and launched a court-based eviction diversion program that worked with the existing statutes and used existing community service providers. They connected landlords and tenants with the time, information, and resources to resolve housing disputes in a less harmful way. The quantitative and qualitative data show the tremendous potential for court-based eviction diversion programs to accomplish this goal. Diversion programs alone cannot solve housing instability or offset rent increases, inadequate availability of affordable housing, or insufficient funding for legal services. They can, however, build the collective capacity of a community by leveraging the unique position of the court as a connective hub.
As the 2024 EDI Interim Report discussed in more detail, eviction diversion programs offer many benefits to the court and community:
- Fewer Eviction Judgments: The overwhelming majority of eviction cases that worked with a diversion program (89%) were voluntarily dismissed by the landlord or settled by agreement.
- Higher Appearance Rates: Tenants are more likely to show up at court and avoid a default judgment.
- More Sealed Eviction Records: More tenants have their past eviction records erased or restricted from public view, allowing them to move forward without the harm of an eviction record.
- Stronger Connections to Legal and Non-Legal Resources: Landlords have more alternatives to costly litigation and, where available, easier access to rental assistance dollars. Tenants can more easily access legal aid, mediation, and wraparound resources to address their other interrelated needs.
- Higher Levels of Trust and Confidence in the Justice System: Litigants are more likely to report a positive experience with the court.
The EDI sites have demonstrated that it is never too early or too late to intervene in a case: interventions can prevent the current eviction, and support can avoid the next one. While courts must remain impartial, they need not be inactive. When courts and service providers work together, they increase their collective capacity to serve their communities.
Does your court have an eviction diversion program? Share your experiences with us. For more information, contact knowledge@ncsc.org or call 800-616-6164. Follow the National Center for State Courts on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and Vimeo. For more Trending Topics posts, visit ncsc.org/trendingtopics and subscribe to the LinkedIn newsletter.