CLASI Delaware, Shepherds Office praise passage of Tenant’s Rights bill

DELAWARE – The Delaware House and Senate have both passed the Senate Substitute for Senate Bill 1, allowing tenants to receive legal representation during eviction proceedings.

The measure was part of Governor Carney’s budget, including $101.5 million in housing investment, the largest housing investment in Delaware history.

“This is groundbreaking, this is amazing, our legislature, our governor should be applauded for taking this step,” said Delaware Community Legal Aid Society Attorney Sarah Rhine.

Rhine tells 47ABC the organization had been working to represent as many people as possible without this law, but with more funding from the state, they hope they can reach even further.

“Legal services in the state have been representing less than 5% of tenants facing eviction. And we hope to increase that number by a lot,” she said.

Rhine says judges won’t always side with tenants, but now people will be able to get into better situations without having an eviction proceeding on their record.
Rhine says that could hurt their future housing chances.

She tells us by making sure attorneys are present at any legal proceedings, it makes sure both parties are operating in good faith to have their issues resolved.

Before many cases make it to trial the law also establishes a mediated session between tenants and landlords to establish a path forward.

“We represented a single mother of five who is blind, she was not receiving the notices from the landlord in a way that she could access them, so she failed to provide documents to the landlord that were necessary for her to remain in the housing, and they filed an eviction against her,” Rhine said citing an example she hopes to see less of under the new structure.

Advocates for housing say the measure can help to prevent homelessness, something those who work with the homeless say in addition to the new funding for affordable housing is desperately needed.

“I happen to have a few disabled people that I’m working with, people that have income and they have like $800 a month or so coming in and they’ve learned to live on that and they don’t have any other way to earn money. So they have that disability payment coming in and they’re they’re basically being priced out right now and put and being put out on the street,” said outreach coordinator for the Shepherds Office Jim Martin.

Martin tells us he believes there are around 10,000 homeless in Sussex County alone, many of home lost their homes, yet continue to work, and rely on services such as hot meals from the Shepherds Office or shelters at Code Purple locations.

He tells us that housing funding will also help people have a place to go once they are expected to transition out of temporary housing.

“There is no affordable housing, not now, and not everyone can afford these big family units, its great to see 100 million dollars, but I’d want to see 200, 300, treat it like a highway and eminent domain land because these people need a place, to sleep, sit or stand and that’s at the bare minimum,” Martin said.