Candice Brooks hasn’t been able to pay her rent in full since she lost her job as a nurse during the federal government shutdown in November. She’s racked up some late fees and pleaded with her landlord to give her a little more time. She thought they had a deal that she could get caught up when her fast-tracked tax return arrives.
So she was devastated by the notice she received last Thursday morning.
“YOU HAVE BEEN SCHEDULED FOR MOVE OUT,” the black-and-white letters shouted from the page in all-capital letters. “You must vacate these premises within 24 hours.”
She looked into shelters and was told they couldn’t accommodate her and her four children. Desperate to stay in her rental house on Addicks-Clodine Road, Brooks loaded up her kids and drove to the courthouse annex on Chimney Rock, where Justice of the Peace James Lombardino was reviewing 53 cases on an eviction docket.
A line of people who were having one of the worst days of their lives waited in a crowded courtroom to find out if they’d soon be removed from their homes and forced into collections for thousands of dollars in back rent. Brooks asked a clerk for an emergency appeal and was promptly denied.
But then she got lucky.
Chad Elrod with the Houston Eviction Advocacy Center was on site. He noticed she was upset and asked if she was OK.
“I think I need your help,” she said.
Elrod, a former U.S. Army JAG attorney, called Brooks’ landlord and offered to draft an agreement ensuring that the single mom would pay her back rent and late fees — totaling about $9,100 — if they’d call off the constables who were planning to throw her belongings on the front lawn and forcibly remove her from the home the next morning.
Many more Houston residents could find themselves in eviction court this year due to a new law that took effect on January 1.
The old law gave specific provisions for how notice could be provided; the new one allows landlords to simply send an email. Timelines have also been tightened up, meaning people sued for eviction could be removed from their apartments in weeks rather than months.
Howard Bookstaff, general counsel for the Houston Apartment Association, said his organization is cautiously optimistic that the new provisions will offer a streamlined, efficient process for landlords stuck with tenants who don’t pay rent.
But in a county where more than 75,000 eviction cases were filed last year, not everyone is happy about it being easier to render people homeless.
Brooks, 40, has a new job at West Oaks Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and is confident she can come up with the money in two weeks, according to the agreement Elrod negotiated with her landlord.
But for many who were given extensions last week, February rent will be due by the time they get caught up, and what happens then?
Easier and Faster Evictions
Elrod and Eviction Advocacy Center attorney Eric Kwartler helped dozens of people in recent days.
A single mom faced with taking her kids to a shelter got a temporary reprieve on the $2,800 she owes Grand at Westchase Apartments. A 25-year-old with a chronic pain condition that prohibits her from working is finalizing a deal so that her eviction won’t stain her credit report for seven years. A man who works at a fast food restaurant and recently had his car repossessed has at least another week before a notice to vacate shows up at his home.
In addition to the streamlined measures, the new Senate Bill 38 allows landlords to seek removal without a trial in specific cases, particularly for unauthorized occupants (squatters) and those who don’t dispute the facts of the case.
Mark Melton, founder of the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center, after which the Houston organization is modeled, said the legislation originally proposed by Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, and Rep. Angie Chen Button, R-Garland, was “absolutely egregiously terrible,” designed to strip tenants of due process rights and erode judicial authority.
It targeted lawful renters who were late on payment but was called a “squatters bill” to gain legislative and public support, Melton said.
Over the course of several visits to Austin last year, Melton and others negotiated changes that they say offer a fair chance at due process for the state’s 12 million renters, and they added language that he says actually targets squatters.
The “no one gets a trial anymore” narrative that has been widely reported isn’t accurate, but it was included in the original draft of the bill, he said.
“That provision was the whole bill and it didn’t make it into the final draft,” he said. “We were able to convince enough members of the Legislature that it was just ridiculous. It’s still in the bill, but it got limited to legitimate squatters. The original bill did not distinguish between tenants and squatters at all, not even in one place.”
“This is the part of the story that the media has refused to pick up, which is super-interesting to me because it’s on paper. It’s indisputable,” he said. “They pitched this thing as a squatter bill. They trotted in all these people in front of a Senate hearing to tell their stories about their squatter situation, some of which were legitimate, some of which were completely made up.”
Melton said as the language was being negotiated, every lawmaker he spoke to referred to the legislation as the “squatter bill.” He had a swift response: “It’s not a fucking squatter bill.”
Despite its flaws, according to advocates, the new law has some tenant-friendly language such as a “limited right to cure,” meaning a tenant who is late on rent for the first time must be provided a “notice to pay or vacate,” rather than just a notice to vacate. That document expires in three days and if the tenant still hasn’t paid, the eviction can be filed.
Eviction lawsuits will inevitably rise in 2026, Melton predicted.
“Inflation is up,” he said. “People have less extra cash if they have any at all. One bump in the road, one flat tire, one day off work because your kid got sick, and the whole budget’s blown.”
“There’s a lot less opportunity for the landlord to mess up the [notification] process, therefore there are fewer defenses to the eviction because of that,” he said. “The number of evictions filed is going to go up, naturally, because of economic conditions, and the number of people who are sued and actually evicted will go up because of this law, because it makes it easier to evict.”
The bill’s language does not specify whether the “first time late” applies to a renter’s entire history or just the current 12-month lease period, Melton said. Advocates and landlords are waiting to see how the law is interpreted by judges.
Brooks said her notice to vacate was taped to the front door, which supposedly is no longer a legal way to provide notification. Landlords can issue a notice to vacate within 24 hours of the rent being late, and can sue for eviction after four days.
A court date is set, and if the case is not appealed and eviction is granted by the Justice of the Peace, “constables come to your house, take all your stuff, throw it on the street and forcibly remove you from the property,” said Jay Malone, director of government and community relations for the Houston Eviction Advocacy Center, which launched in October after seeing the success of Melton’s identical Dallas operation.
A trial is supposed to be held within 10 and 21 days of the judge’s order, but that hasn’t traditionally happened, Melton said. Some appeals courts were sitting on the cases for months, and the statute now says they have 21 days.
Justice of the Peace courts will now deal only with “possession” — whether a tenant is lawfully occupying a unit — and not property damage and lease validity, which can stall cases. For example, a tenant can’t say they should remain in the home because the air conditioner wasn’t fixed as promised. There’s just one question being asked in court: Is the eviction lawful?
“I think the entire bill is a huge win for landlords,” Melton said.
Unmanageable Debt
Almost everyone at eviction court has experienced a recent change that caused them to get behind on rent. In most cases, it’s the loss of a job.
Zoey Pesses got her eviction notice five days after Christmas.
Pesses has been out of work since last fall, around the time she was diagnosed with the chronic pain condition trigeminal neuralgia. She hasn’t paid rent since October, but her roommate has been paying half of the $1,600 a month they owe. Late fees and interest have caused what was once a workable debt to become unmanageable.
Pesses’ health condition causes “shooting pain” in her face. She takes medicine to prevent convulsions and has had teeth extracted. She spent a considerable amount of time in the emergency room over the last few months.
She lived at the apartment on Rice Avenue for over a year and never missed rent until recently. She inquired about breaking the lease for medical reasons but such an option was not included in her renter’s contract.
She said she contacted the landlord and tried to work out an extension. He could have evicted her long before he did, and he’s only suing her for $736, according to court documents, which Pesses said is a fraction of what she owes.
The 25-year-old was in Justice of the Peace Eric Carter’s courtroom on January 7, planning to ask for grace: a payment plan and an opportunity for her roommate to move into a one-bedroom unit at Remington Park Apartments without the stain of an eviction on their records.
“It was my fault,” Pesses said. “I need time for [my roommate]. She’s my best friend. She doesn’t have a place to go. I have a note from my doctor that says I haven’t been able to work. I’m just hoping that they extend it a few weeks or something before they change the locks.”
The young woman says she knows she’s one of the lucky ones. She doesn’t have kids and isn’t forced to relocate to a homeless shelter, but she does have to re-home two cats. She’s already moved in with her grandmother in Lake Jackson.
A scan of court records shows that Pesses’ case was reset to January 14, meaning she’ll have to make the two-hour drive from her grandmother’s home again. Elrod is now listed as her attorney.
“I messed up,” she said. “I know I can’t live there for free.”
Melanie Miles, a family law attorney who is running for Justice of the Peace Precinct 7 Place 2, said she’s represented clients who were evicted with no opportunity to present their cases, and when they asked for assistance, were told that there are services available at homeless shelters.
She said she’s seen mothers with children walking out of court crying because they may have to go to a shelter and figure out a way to get their furniture and belongings into a storage unit, another expense beyond their means.
That was the situation last Thursday for Briauna Carmichael, who was in Lombardino’s court asking for an extension on the $2,800 she owes Grand at Westchase. The single mom has a 3-year-old and a 9-year-old and moved from St. Louis to Houston last year. She’s working full-time but got behind on rent over the holidays.
“I want to stay,” she said. “I need to stay. I don’t have nowhere to go. I prayed; I cried. There’s nothing else I can do.”
Carmichael’s landlord was also in court last week and, at the urging of Houston Eviction Advocacy Center attorneys, met with Carmichael and gave her an extension. He also said he’d consider waiving late fees.
“This guy has a heart, and not enough landlords do,” Elrod said. “I told him I just met her and would like to have the opportunity to try and get the rental assistance and get him paid for the back rent, and she just needs until the end of the month. If we can get her past this hiccup in life, I’m confident she’ll be able to pay her rent going forward.”
Last Wednesday, Judge Carter ran through 49 eviction cases. Next week he has a docket with more than 100 cases scheduled for a single day. Landlords have to file within the precinct where their property is but there are two courts for each precinct. Critics of the Harris County process say that some courts have become “eviction mills,” known for providing favorable results to landlords.
However, there are judges known for going out of their way to help tenants. Steve Duble in Precinct 1 Place 2 provides a resource navigation room where evictees can look up their cases and meet with service providers or lawyers. Wanda Adams in Precinct 7 Place 1 invites representatives from Houston City College to court to help with job placement. and occasionally has union reps on site.
Housing advocates estimate that more than half of the tenants who get a notice to vacate don’t show up to court because they can’t miss work or find childcare, or they don’t have transportation.
They also often assume the effort is pointless, Melton said.
“If you don’t show up, you have an almost 100 percent chance of losing,” he said, noting that in its brief lifespan, the Houston Eviction Advocacy Center has a success rate of keeping more than 90 percent of its clients housed. They’ll still have to pay the back rent, but the goal is always to avoid eviction, he said.
With almost daily eviction dockets, it’s become a common, rubber-stamp process for landlords to give tenants the boot and bring in the next renter from a wait list. It’s not something landlords typically relish, but they still have to pay taxes and insurance and address maintenance needs, Bookstaff said.
A lot of property owners will do everything they can to work out a payment plan before suing for eviction, he added, noting that court appearances are burdensome for landlords too.
In Judge Lombardino’s court, cases are automatically dismissed if neither the tenant nor the landlord shows up. Cases where the landlord, but not the tenant, is present are automatically ruled in favor of the landlord and a judgment is entered for whatever dollar amount they shout out in court.
The eviction process is unpleasant, but sometimes it’s the only means available to recover possession of a property that isn’t being paid for, Bookstaff said.
“It would stand to reason that non-paying residents who stay in the unit without paying create an additional burden on everybody else who follows the rules and pays their rent,” he said. “I can’t walk into a grocery store and take a batch of bananas and leave. I’ve got to pay for them. And if I don’t pay for them, there’s a loss to the owner of the grocery store that will increase the price of food for everyone else.”
Caleb Price, 23, attended court last week to try to work out a payment plan with Ominet Meyerland. He owes the company about $1,300. He lost a job at Wing Stop late last year and his car was repossessed on Christmas Eve.
“By the time I got a new job, I was already two weeks behind on rent,” he said.
The single dad said he may be able to move in with a family member but was concerned about having to transfer his son out of Lovett Elementary School. He learned while at the courthouse annex last week that a federal law will allow him to keep his son in the same school until stable housing is secured.
He’s been taking a Lyft to his new $18-an-hour job at Pluckers Wing Bar and said he’s getting back on his feet and making a steady paycheck now. He also got lucky that the Houston Eviction Advocacy Center was on site. He was turned away from the courtroom because he was wearing shorts, so the lawyers represented him from the hallway. His case was postponed a week.
“It’s a wake-up call,” Price said. “I understand everyone has a job to do. I come in here with my head up and my chest out. I’ll make some calls and see what I can do as far as moving somewhere else. Life is never going to be fair. The train is never going to stop. This train don’t have brakes.”
From Eviction to Unhoused
Advocates say mass evictions exacerbate homelessness. Although the data is tracked separately, a 2020 Rice University Kinder Institute for Urban Research study reported that evictions cost Harris County $240 million annually, estimating that about 25 percent of people evicted in a given year require emergency shelter services.
During the most recent Point in Time count in 2025, about 3,325 people were homeless in Fort Bend, Harris and Montgomery counties. More than 2,000 were in shelters; the others were sleeping outside or in places not meant for habitation.
Malone said the Houston Eviction Advocacy Center saw a need and rounded up attorneys who previously worked with Lone Star Legal Aid, a pro bono group that has come close to dissolving due to a lack of federal funding.
“It’s one of the most effective anti-homelessness interventions,” Malone said of eviction advocacy.
More than half of those in eviction court have children in the home. Reducing evictions creates “massive savings” in social service costs and foster care, and it maintains economic mobility, Malone said.
“When you get evicted, the likelihood that you’re going to lose your job is high if you haven’t lost it already,” he said. “You’re going to lose your car and basically your ability to work. A lot of those things are ameliorated by having legal defense.”
Kwartler, an attorney with Houston Eviction Advocacy Center, pointed out that “you don’t have to be under an overpass to be homeless.”
Over the past few months, pro bono lawyers have attempted to “saturate” Justice of the Peace courts in hopes that their presence will “force landlords to follow the actual letter of the law,” Melton said.
Tenants who have legal representation have a relatively low rate of recidivism, he said.
“People say, ‘Aren’t you just delaying the inevitable? You saved them one day and they’re just going to be back in court next week.’ That’s just not true,” he said. “In the last 12 months, only 16 percent of the people we helped had more than one eviction case. It’s not true that these are deadbeats who are constantly in eviction court.”
“I don’t know how you convince people that these are people who are worthy of caring about,” he added.
Brooks isn’t a deadbeat cycling through the court system. She got her nursing degree 16 years ago and has never had difficulty maintaining employment until recently. She even went to law school for two years.
“This can happen to anyone,” she said. “I went through a nasty divorce and it took me almost three years to get back on my feet.”
Miles, the JP candidate and family law attorney, repeated a mantra that’s common among housing advocates: we’re all just one bad day away from getting that notice to vacate. Miles said that when her father died in a car accident when she was a child, her family faced eviction but her mother was able to access assistance resources.
“I don’t want anyone else to have to go through that fear,” she said.
Houston Eviction Advocacy Center
Within a week of staffing up four pro bono lawyers and hanging around Justice of the Peace Courts where eviction cases are heard, the Houston Eviction Advocacy Center had represented 13 tenants and none were evicted. To date, more than 300 Houston tenants have been helped by the Houston center.
The pro bono attorneys frequently refer their new clients to programs like Rapid Rehousing Houston and tell them that they may qualify for Harris County’s rent relief assistance program. Even when a tenant gets a one- or two-week extension on their payment, they’re advised to have a backup plan in place.
But there are not enough lawyers to show up for every eviction docket, Malone said.
“In all the courts that we’re in, we’ve had full saturation,” he said, noting that it remains to be seen whether landlords will adhere to the new law. “It’s going to be chaos. There are a lot of changes that I think people are not generally prepared for, mainly on the landlord side.”
Evictions are highest in Precincts 4 and 5, which are the most populated precincts, Malone said.
“Gulfton, for example, has an enormous amount of apartment complexes and a lot of poverty, so that’s a hotspot,” he said.
Once a tenant is evicted, most reputable apartment managers won’t consider an application for at least two years, Melton said.
“Most people are relegated to slums that will accept evictees,” he said. “They have terrible living conditions, and there’s a premium you pay for that. These places are not cheaper because they’re shitty. They’re more expensive.”
Lawyers on both sides of the issue — those who represent landlords and tenants — agree that there’s a shortage of affordable housing in Houston.
Bookstaff points out that if people are occupying units without paying for them, they could be preventing paying renters from having an affordable place to live.
Melton, however, notes that people get confused when they see new development going up all the time. People say the housing market is booming, but they’re not distinguishing between what type of housing is being built, he said.
“If you can only afford a thousand-dollar-a-month apartment, the fact that they’re building high-rises downtown and 600-unit Class A apartments all over the place doesn’t in any way, shape or form impact the number of thousand-dollar-a-month apartments,” he said.
The result is that people end up living in places they can’t afford, he said.
Brooks became one of those people, albeit temporarily, last week. She spoke to the Houston Press on Friday morning and said she was able to avoid eviction due to the agreement Elrod brokered with her landlord.
“Mr. Chad went above and beyond,” she said. “Court was over. He didn’t have to do what he did. He made the call and drafted that document and sent it to me and my landlord. He is an angel.”
This article appears in Private: Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2026.