Several residents used the general public comment period at the Douglas County Board of County Commissioners meeting on Oct. 22 to press the commission to adopt a tenant right-to-counsel program, saying families face eviction without legal representation.

Adrianna, a resident who identified her ZIP code as 66049, told commissioners it had been 532 days since the commission pledged to establish a tenant rights council and argued the delay has left families exposed to evictions and unequal outcomes in court. She said the group Lawrence Tenet had compiled court-docket data over eight months and found more than 800 eviction filings countywide during the period under review.

Cassandra Barrett and other volunteers read a long list of Douglas County case numbers the group compiled to make the scale of filings visible to the commission. Baker and other commenters continued the readings to emphasize the human impact of evictions, including single parents and tenants surviving domestic violence.

Katie Krause (who signed as Katie Cross in part of the remarks) argued that right-to-counsel programs are proven to be cost-effective by preventing homelessness and reducing downstream public costs for emergency shelters, health care and social services. She asked the commission for a concrete timeline and urged codifying tenant right to counsel into county code so tenants facing eviction would be eligible for counsel.

Commissioners did not take action on the request during the meeting. The public-comment speakers asked staff and the commission to move beyond repeated requests for data and to set a timeline for implementation.

Ending: Speakers said the harms of eviction fall heavily on Black, Indigenous and people of color and LGBTQ residents and that county resources allocated to capital projects could be reallocated to support prevention through counsel. The commission did not set a timeline during the meeting; speakers requested follow-up and concrete milestones.