Members of the Milwaukee Autonomous Tenants Union (MATU) join other Milwaukee residents in a protest calling for a freeze to rents and evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors has unanimously approved $250,000 to fund the Legal Aid Society’s Right to Counsel Program. Under this program, eligible residents facing eviction proceedings will receive free legal representation. Tenants and families with young children will be prioritized in the new program. 

“There is a broad, positive, progressive coalition of stakeholders who support this program,” said Sup. Jack Eckblad, author of the amendment which will help fund the program. Calls to establish such a program have grown since 2020, when eviction filings sored to new heights during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Milwaukee County eviction filings rose by 26 that year.

An initial pilot program launched in late 2021 received  more than $3 million in funding. Under the program, tenants who arrived to eviction proceedings were more frequently represented by  lawyers, with the incidence of representation rising  from 2-3% to 6-16%. Evictions were prevented in 76% of cases, and eviction records were sealed in 72% of cases. The majority of those filings, a report evaluating the pilot program found, were made in majority Black census tracts, and 78% of the program’s clients were Black women. 

Housing advocates said that the program needed to expand to have greater impact. They also objected to input from landlords during the process of  crafting new programs to help tenants in Milwaukee. 

During the summer, outreach groups reported seeing more individuals living unhoused on the streets and  in cars. In July, after an unhoused man was killed by out-of-state police during the Republican National Convention, the outreach group Street Angels reported serving up to 300 people per night. Funding for the Right to Counsel Program comes as Wisconsin’s largest braces for  winter.