After Kenya Henry’s car was stolen earlier this year, everything just snowballed.
She lost her job because she couldn’t get to work. She fell behind on rent. She slipped while walking into her building during snowy weather, forcing her to use a cane.
“It was like a domino effect,” she said.
Henry was homeless before she found her current apartment, but her new home wasn’t without its problems, she said. She had to use her oven to stay warm when she didn’t have heat, she said, and then, earlier this year, she found out her landlord was trying to evict her.
So, by the time the 55-year-old Detroiter sat inside Detroit’s 36th District Court for her eviction hearing one Friday morning in late March, she was nervous and anxious. But she felt somewhat hopeful that day – she had an attorney.
Henry received free legal representation through Detroit’s Right to Counsel program, operating out of room 417 inside the courthouse. The small space – with a waiting area on one side and cubicles on the other – teemed with activity as people signed in and lawyers spoke to clients. Tenant advocates from various agencies walked the halls just outside of courtrooms where judges hear eviction cases. There were about 100 cases on the morning docket.
“It is extremely hectic,” said Tony Degard, deputy director of Detroit eviction prevention at Lakeshore Legal Aid, one of the five organizations part of the city of Detroit’s Right to Counsel program that connected Henry with a free attorney.
It’s a change from just a few years ago.
In 2022, before the Right to Counsel program started, 4% of eligible tenants who appeared in court received full representation. In 2025, that percentage surged to 94%, according to a recent Right to Counsel report.
But future funding for the program is uncertain as the city looks for ways to keep money flowing beyond this year. The stakes are high, tenant advocates warn. Loss of funding could mean fewer attorneys to represent Detroiters in court and connect them to resources, and it puts the city at risk of losing the progress it has made.
Where will more money for Right to Counsel come from?
Even when Detroit City Council passed an ordinance in 2022 to provide free lawyers for low-income tenants facing eviction, long-term sustainability was a looming concern.
Here’s what’s in the coffers now: Right to Counsel has about $3 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money to use through June of this year and then $4 million in state grant dollars in hand, for legal services and outreach, according to Diamond Conley, executive director of Right to Counsel.
State Sen. Mary Cavanagh’s (D-Redford Township) team approached Right to Counsel to complete an application for $1.5 million, Conley said, and the Sheffield administration has requested another $3 million from the state.
The objective is to operate the program at its current capacity until at least the end of this year, as the administration seeks additional state and philanthropic dollars, said David Bowser, Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield’s chief of staff. Sheffield sponsored the ordinance during her time on Detroit City Council.
“The mayor has expressed that this is a priority program,” he said. “We know that it has protected thousands of families from being evicted, most of them headed by single women.”
Ashley Lowe, CEO of Lakeshore Legal Aid, said the loss of Right to Counsel funding would be “devastating.”
“It does feel like a big cliff and a scary one for tenants because we’ve really changed the landscape in terms of what tenants expect and what they deserve and what they’re getting,” she said. “We don’t have a way forward without city funding.”
At Lakeshore alone, the program supports 18 staffers, including attorneys and legal assistants, who help about 200 tenants a month negotiate with landlords and get repairs in homes. Gilbert Family Foundation dollars fund an additional 11 employees, who help another 125 tenants a month, and that money is also slated to expire at the end of this year, she said.
In 2022, the Gilbert Family Foundation announced a $12 million Eviction Defense Fund for three legal aid agencies – United Community Housing Coalition, Michigan Legal Services and Lakeshore Legal Aid – to provide legal representation for low-income Detroiters.
“The final payments of our initial grants are scheduled to be disbursed this year. Gilbert Family Foundation is working with a third-party consultant to assess the impact of the first three years of the Detroit Eviction Defense Fund,” said Rob Frappier, a Gilbert Family Foundation spokesperson, in an email. “We have not yet determined when we will announce new support for the program but remain committed to ensuring Detroit residents have access to the resources needed to keep them housed.”
In 2025, the city program – which has income guidelines – provided full legal representation to 8,655 tenants, which cost about $6.8 million. Other funders covered another 2,000 or so tenants. In total, more than 10,600 tenants were eligible and received full representation last year. The city of Detroit provides the most funding for full legal representation.
Conley said she is focused on coming up with a solid funding strategy over the next eight months and has not had discussions with providers about narrowing the program’s scope.
“We’re looking at fundraising options, we’re looking at philanthropic options, we’re looking at state options,” she said.
The exact end date for funding is an “internal conversation,” she said, though the program wants to “make those dollars stretch as much as we can.” She’s communicating with Detroit City Council members about potential fundraising for Right to Counsel and adding surcharges for filing fees at 36th District Court that would go into a funding pool for the program. The current legal opinion of the city – continuing from the previous administration – is that general fund dollars cannot be used for Right to Counsel full legal representation.
“The reality that we’re facing if the program does not continue at its current capacity is less residents receiving assistance and I think there’s, again, a couple of ways to combat that,” Bowser said. “One is making sure that we have the commensurate funding that we need to continue at least at its current capacity. Two is reducing the level of need that we have out there.”
The city is building “poverty alleviation strategies” before people even get to the eviction stage, he said. Residents don’t have to wait until they’ve gotten a notice to get housing help and can call the Detroit Housing Resource HelpLine at 866-313-2520, he said. The new Human, Homeless and Family Services Department (HHFS) is also meant to ensure resources are in one place.
A Right to Counsel progress report
The goal of Right to Counsel is to level the playing field so tenants could also have legal representation in court. A University of Michigan report found that about 3% of tenants had an attorney, among closed eviction cases before the pandemic, compared to 85% of landlords.
“Right to Counsel, since its passage in 2022, has provided massive improvements that I’ve not seen in a period of over 40 years plus that I’ve practiced in the 36th District Court,” said Ted Phillips, executive director of the United Community Housing Coalition, during a public meeting in early March.
Here are some takeaways from a recent report on Right to Counsel:
- From March 2023 to December 2025, the program represented 16,283 households, of which 8,600 – or 53% – were able to stay in their homes.
- Forty-seven percent of the cases represented resulted in tenants needing to relocate. Program attorneys were able to get the vast majority of tenants 30 to 60 days to vacate as opposed to the statutory minimum of 10 days.
- Judges signed off repair orders for 40% of households that reported having issues in their unit.
A separate April report from the advisory firm Stout, prepared for the city of Detroit and provided to the Free Press, evaluated the cases the program worked with and found that 73% were for a property that did not have a city required certificate of compliance. In 14% of the cases, the tenant said they did not have water or heat.
Right to Counsel is important, though it’s not the only solution, since it’s not designed to address illegal evictions, for instance, said Shawnita Sealy-Jefferson, an associate professor of social epidemiology at the Ohio State University College of Public Health, whose research focuses on the impact of evictions on Black women in metro Detroit.
Matthew Paletz, CEO of Troy-based Paletz Law, which represents landlords, said the idea behind right to counsel is laudable.
“If there’s an opportunity for people to be represented and be advised of their rights, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I think that’s healthy,” Paletz said.
However, he pushed back against linking decreased evictions with the program. There are many factors at play that could lead to fewer evictions, he said, such as how fast the court processes cases and landlords working more with tenants to avoid eviction.
“If the goal is to provide tenants with rights, great,” he said. “But if then the goal is to frustrate the landlord’s remedies in a matter where it’s going to elongate, artificially, the eviction process to someone who has … racked up a bunch of rent that’s owed to the landlord, then that’s where the program, in my opinion, instead of a shield, becomes a sword and the tip of that sword is pointed squarely at the landlord and they have to bear the brunt of the financial disruption to the property.”
Elongating the court process could hurt landlords because “as more time accrues, more rent accrues,” he said, and can be concerning for those who rely on rental income to make mortgage payments.
“If that rent is not collectible because the tenant ultimately does get evicted or ultimately skips out or leaves, the landlord is the one left holding the bag,” Paletz said.
‘I’m so grateful’
Henry, the tenant who received help from Lakeshore Legal Aid through the Right to Counsel program, and her landlord came to an agreement on the Friday she was at 36th District Court: she could either pay the overdue rent or move out within 30 days in exchange for a lower balance – a deal she may not have been able to get without her own lawyer.
She said she was satisfied, though she wanted to go to trial to get compensation for not having heat.
She plans to move out by the end of April and pay a reduced balance, she told the Free Press recently. She hasn’t found another apartment yet but was referred to an eviction diversion program that will pay the security deposit and first month’s rent once she finds a new place. Finding a home has been hard, though, and “mentally exhausting.”
Chief Judge William McConico of the 36th Court said legal representation for tenants is now consistent. The system isn’t perfect but it’s much better than how it used to be, he said.
Before he was chief judge, McConico said he found himself not wanting to cover the landlord tenant docket – knowing his day would be filled with signing writs and evicting people. When tenants and landlords come to an agreement, it’s a good outcome for both parties and for the stability of the neighborhood.
“We want to have a stable community,” McConico told the Free Press last month. “We want people to stay in homes or apartments for some time, so people aren’t transient.”
Savannah Thomas, who had a lawyer through Right to Counsel, was in tears that same Friday as she sat outside room 417.
Her landlord had moved to evict her. She hadn’t been paying rent since late last year because she said her landlord didn’t own the house and wouldn’t make repairs, she said. Her windows wouldn’t stay closed. She had to get her home exterminated five times.
Her eviction case had been dismissed that day. Thomas, 65, of Detroit, could stay in her home, avoid homelessness and look for a new place to stay. She said she felt heard.
“I’m so grateful,” Thomas said.
