Eviction or intervention? Debating Washington's eviction program as cases surge

The spike in evictions and backlog of cases in King County has prompted a debate over how well Washington state's plan is working to help tenants facing evictions. That debate landed at Soundside.

In this corner, we have the landlord. And in this corner, the challenger, the tenant facing eviction. Each battling it out for a coveted key to a housing unit. Who will win? Only the court knows.

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"What the tool of litigation is, it's designed to create winners and losers. That is what litigation does, fundamentally," Sean Flynn, executive director of the Rental Housing Association of Washington, told KUOW's Soundside.

"You go to court, they decide if one person wins, and one person loses," Flynn went on. "Housing doesn’t work that way. Ideally, in housing, you need to build a win-win solution, especially if you want to maintain that tenancy."

But, Flynn argued, Washington's current eviction program is only creating winners and losers. That program officially began in 2022. The state pays for attorneys to represent low-income tenants facing eviction. The Rental Housing Association of Washington, or RHAW, advocates for independent landlords in the state, many of whom find themselves in a position to go to court when a tenant doesn't leave their unit.

Starting in late 2023, some parts of Washington state began experiencing spikes in evictions shortly after pandemic-era protections began phasing out. King County has a backlog of cases. According to The Seattle Times, King County Superior Court is promoting an option for landlords to speed up the process if they submit evidence that a tenant is affecting others' safety or is causing hazards.

The court doesn't have to be the solution, according to Flynn, who would rather see mediation, rental vouchers, or other alternatives to resolve disputes.

"Forcing it through the court system — and they still can’t pay their rent at the end — you didn’t solve anything," Flynn said. "We’re just right back to where we started, but we spent all this money, and that person gets evicted. It’s bad. So, instead of looking at it as a win/lose situation, we need to think about it as an intervention point … to get this person to housing they can afford that is stable for them long term."

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"Intervention" is also a word that Philippe Knab uses in support of Washington's new eviction program. He's the eviction defense and reentry program manager at the Washington State Office of Civil Legal Aid. This office is in charge of getting attorneys to low-income tenants when an eviction order comes to their door.

"In all of the ways that Washington is trying to address houselessness, this is kind of a catchall intervention," Knab said. "This type of intervention makes sure that no one falls through the system."

Knab said this means that an attorney can help a veteran access benefits to keep them housed, or connect others with resources they qualify for, instead of going straight to eviction. Those attorneys are also there when the issue does land in court.

"We're really proud of the fact that every single eligible tenant has received an attorney since the inception of this program," Knab said. "And I'll say we're getting really close to a capacity where we can't do that."

Knab said that the free attorneys are not the reason eviction cases have become so prevalent. Rather, he said the delay stems from the court backlog.

"And it's not just King County. Clark County is also having an incredibly large number of eviction filings," Knab said, adding that evictions are currently higher than they were pre-pandemic.

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Knab said the high numbers are the result of pandemic-era rental protections expiring, inflation, and newer protection programs; however, he said this issue is not unique to Washington state. His office hears about similar eviction spikes from sister agencies across the United States.

"Our data tells us that non-payment of rent is the most common proceeding. I think that inflation is certainly a big part of that," Knab said. "Rents have risen dramatically across the state and wages have not kept up with that."

Still, Flynn with RHAW argued that "tenor of the conversation is so incredibly contentious when it doesn’t have to be." He said independent landlords used to be able to handle many disputes with a text message or a phone call. Now, they spend up to a year to handle it in court, and at the end of that year, the tenant often is still evicted. He added taxpayer money is being spent the entire time.

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"Them staying in the unit is bad," Flynn said. "It’s bad for them. It’s bad for the housing provider. It racks up debt. Instead of thinking about it in terms of, ‘I want to stay, you want me to leave,’ we need to think about it as an intervention point with this person to get them into some housing that is better suited for them. Because they clearly cannot afford the unit they are in. That’s why we are here. Or maybe it’s an intervention point that says, ‘Hey, I need $600 because the fork lift ran over my foot, and I’m waiting on my L&I check.’ But no one asks those questions because we just have one tool, and it’s litigation."

"I say this as a lawyer: lawyers generally don’t make things better," he added. "You want a mediation at that point. What’s happened is the law has changed, so a lot of stuff that we used to just handle outside the court system now has to go through the court system."

Listen to Soundside's full segment on evictions in King County here.

KUOW's Dyer Oxley contributed to this article.