A tenant facing eviction may need a lawyer, money to cover overdue rent, help gathering documents, and someone who can coordinate those steps before a deadline expires. Social work belongs in that response. The profession should help build the systems that preserve housing while people still have it.
Portland’s recent procurement offers a concrete starting point. The Housing Bureau sought providers for an Eviction Legal Defense Program and Right to Counsel Pilot combining legal representation, diversion before filing, court support, case management, and coordination of financial assistance. The city advertised up to $2.5 million annually, with up to four annual renewals subject to budget changes, and allowed for multiple awards. Proposals were due September 9, 2026. This is now a story about program design, not an open application notice. The announcement alone does not establish that contracts have been awarded or services have begun.
Build the response around the household
The useful idea is coordination. A tenant should not have to assemble a service network while trying to protect a home. Our recommendation is to give each participating household a clear point of contact who can work alongside counsel, identify practical barriers, and follow the case through the next step.
Consider a hypothetical tenant who has a court date but cannot reach a office providing rental assistance during work hours. A referral list does little to solve that conflict. A social worker could help organize the application, arrange a conversation at an accessible time, and coordinate with the legal team. The lawyer would retain responsibility for legal advice and representation. Each profession would contribute within its competence.
That division of responsibility matters. Housing practice should not require social workers to become substitute attorneys, and legal representation should not be expected to resolve every income, disability, or caregiving problem affecting a household.
Fund the work between appointments
A serious prevention program should budget for the labor that makes services usable: repeated outreach, interpretation, accessible meetings, document collection, and coordination with other providers. Those activities need staffing and supervision. If a contract counts only completed appointments, it can miss the work required to make an appointment possible.
Social work agencies should propose manageable caseloads and explain what a worker can realistically accomplish. Universities should develop supervised housing placements with partners in legal services and tenant support. Students could learn to connect individual circumstances with administrative rules, resource allocation, and institutional accountability, the substance of social work education.
This extends the argument in our earlier article, Food, Shelter, and Therapy: Social Work’s Misplaced Priorities. Supporting emotional wellbeing and securing material necessities should be connected in practice. A housing emergency requires action on housing.
Measure whether people remain housed
Our proposed evaluation would track the time from first contact to assistance, whether a household actually reaches legal counsel, and housing stability after the immediate case ends. Programs should also examine who cannot obtain help and why. Eligibility rules, language barriers, inaccessible hours, and limited capacity deserve separate attention.
These are recommendations, not reported Portland outcomes. A solicitation describes intended services; results require evidence from implementation. Avoiding that distinction would turn a promising design into an unearned success story.
Portland has put several essential functions into one proposed response. Social work’s next task is to help make that coordination real: someone answers, someone follows through, and the household has a meaningful opportunity to keep its home.