Letter template · Local Official
To a city council member or county supervisor: support just-cause eviction and right to counsel
The two most consequential tenant protections — and both are typically state-or-local-level fights.
Personalize with a specific local concern: a building where tenants have been pressured to leave, a neighbor’s eviction, a rent increase your community has experienced. Local officials read constituent mail more carefully than most levels of government, and specific local examples carry weight.
Dear [Council Member / Supervisor / Commissioner] [Last Name],
I’m writing as a resident of [city/town/county] to ask you to support local just-cause eviction protections and right to counsel in eviction proceedings.
US tenant law is unusually weak by comparison with most peer countries. Most US tenants have no just-cause protection — landlords can decline to renew leases for any reason or no reason. Most US tenants face eviction proceedings without legal representation while landlords have counsel. The cumulative effect is a high-churn rental market in which most tenants live one rent increase or non-renewal away from displacement.
Two local-level reforms address this directly:
Just-cause eviction. Requires landlords to identify a specific cause for non-renewal — nonpayment, lease violation, owner move-in, etc. — rather than declining to renew at will. Implemented in many US cities and several states, it shifts power back toward tenants without raising the supply-side concerns that broader rent-control measures sometimes do.
Right to counsel in eviction proceedings. Public legal representation for tenants in eviction cases. NYC, San Francisco, Cleveland, Newark, Philadelphia, and a growing list of cities have implemented some form of right to counsel. The empirical record is strong: representation measurably reduces eviction rates and produces better outcomes for tenants — especially those with valid defenses or counterclaims that go undeveloped without legal support.
Both reforms have:
- Strong empirical records of measurable effectiveness.
- Bipartisan support in many implementations.
- Costs that have been substantially offset by the reduced public costs of housing instability and homelessness.
- Clear local-government implementation paths that don’t require state or federal action.
[Personalize: name a specific local concern. Examples: “Our [neighborhood/building] has seen [specific pattern]”; “A neighbor / friend / family member faced [specific eviction or non-renewal]”; “Local rent increases have run [specific data] over the past [period]”; “I’m a [tenant/landlord/social worker/legal aid attorney] with direct experience”.]
I’d appreciate knowing your position on specific local proposals on these reforms and on the broader local agenda for tenant protection. If [city/county] doesn’t currently have a proposal on the table, I’d encourage you to introduce or co-sponsor one.
Thank you for your service to our community.
Sincerely,
[Your name] [Your address]