OHIO — As rental assistance runs out, the number of eviction filings has reached pre-pandemic levels, and in some cases, exceeded pre-pandemic levels.
What You Need To Know
- Before the pandemic, Ohio landlords filed about 105,000 to 110,000 eviction cases every year, about 10,000/month according to the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio
- As of July 2023, filings had returned to 10,000 per month
- Legal Aid attorneys say people needing assistance in eviction court is dire
- To learn more, click here
In Franklin County, residents flood eviction court weekly. Jyoshu Tsushima, Managing Attorney for the Tenant Advocacy Project with Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio, said one of the biggest challenges tenants face is coming into court without representation and learning that their landlord has submitted a different reason than they know for eviction.
That’s besides tenants not understanding the legalities of their case.
“They may not know how to present it in a way that’s proper for the court to hear,” Tsushima said.
This is why he and a team of attorneys with Legal Aid provide free legal advice to tenants, while representing them in court. Still, they’re not able to represent everyone because of the sheer number of people showing up to court and the shortage of attorneys.
“It was probably about 1% of tenants who had attorneys (before 2017) and now we’re probably looking at between 15% and 20%,” he said.
For those who don’t have an attorney, there are resources outside of the court, but it’s all challenging to navigate. Tsushima said people don’t understand that Ohio has an expedited eviction process.
“The landlord gives a notice to the tenant three days before filing an eviction action, and then they can usually get a trial scheduled within a couple of weeks and the court will send a summons ordering the tenant to come to court for the eviction trial.”
So, by the time a tenant is notified that they must show up in court, he explained it becomes tough for people to plan to get time off of work, get child care, or make any other arrangements to appear. He added often people don’t realize they are showing up for a trial or that if they’re being evicted, the time to move out will be much shorter than 30 days.
As an attorney, Tsushima said they do their best to keep up with the demand as people discover the nuances of the process.
In the meantime, the number of tenants and landlords negotiating terms and agreements has risen.
“What we’re all about to see is the docket, the eviction docket, go back to something like we think what it may have been like or was like prior to the pandemic and what you most reasonably would expect would be that there are fewer cases probably being resolved through a settlement,” said Gene Edwards, Municipal Court Magistrate & Legal Director.
According to the Eviction Lab, as of January 17th:
- Cincinnati had 1,155 cases filed in the last month, which is 115% of the city’s pre-pandemic monthly average
- Cleveland had 533 cases filed in the last month, which is 86% of the city’s pre-pandemic monthly average
- Columbus had 1,677 cases filed in the last month, which is 123% of the city’s pre-pandemic monthly average
According to the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, the highest eviction rates per capita in 2022 were in:
- Lucas County (11.3% of local renters)
- Butler County (10.6%)
- Hamilton County (9.2%)
- Franklin County (8.8%)
- Montgomery County (7.8%)