February.16.2022
Following a year as an inaugural fellow in our Racial, Social and Economic Justice Fellowship program, associate Roza Patterson published this Newsweek opinion article calling for California to provide counsel to low income tenants facing eviction proceedings.
Roza’s call to action is prompted by her work for the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, where her fellowship enabled her to help tenants secure their rights and preserve housing during the pandemic – particularly challenging in light of California’s acute affordable housing crisis. In her article, Roza notes that tenants are much better protected against eviction if they are represented by lawyers, as is the case in other cities around the nation.
“A statewide right to counsel for tenants is the single most important thing we can do to at least make the eviction process fair,” Roza concludes. “Now is the time to get ahead of this problem and make sure tenants have the counsel they rightly deserve.”