By Urban Institute, February 5, 2020
Housing court in Saint Paul, Minnesota, opens just before 9 a.m. on a frigid Tuesday in early November. Dozens of nervous tenants file in, checking in with the clerk at the front of the room and then finding a seat on the long, padded benches angled toward the podium. There isn’t much privacy in this small space, but there’s no question why people are here: it’s housing court, and every case involves an eviction.
Ramsey County and the surrounding region is facing a rental affordability crisis amid a shortage of affordable homes. Nearly half of renters in Saint Paul spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, and around 1,170 evictions were filed in the city in 2017. Every Tuesday and Thursday, as many as 30 tenants are called into Minnesota’s Second Judicial District’s Housing Court to face their filing.
It’s quiet in the courtroom except for a toddler laughing and playing with her brother in an aisle as their mother sifts through papers, getting ready for her turn. One by one, each tenant is called up to stand at the podium next to their landlord (or, more often, their landlord’s attorney) in front of the judicial referee. Tenants rarely have legal representation in the courtroom, but most landlords do.
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