"Cities could save millions of dollars in tax revenue by helping renters fight landlords. Or so a group of attorneys says.

In the overheated U.S. housing market, just complaining about a leaky ceiling can land you on the street.
Randy Dillard was living with five kids in a four-bedroom house in the Bronx when he informed his landlord of a persistent drip. Dillard rented his $1,800-a-month home near the New York Botanical Garden with help from the federal government's Housing Choice Voucher program. So when his pleas were ignored, the local housing authority administering the vouchers cut off the landlord's payments. Rather than prompt compliance, the move had the opposite effect: The landlord tried to evict Dillard.
Dillard was lucky enough to find free legal help through a local aid program and settled with the landlord. "If I went in without an attorney, I would have been in a shelter," he said.

That, the New York City Bar Association says, is precisely the point. The solution to a homelessness crisis that has accompanied the drop in affordable housing is to hire more lawyers: Give poor renters an attorney, and landlords will more likely settle eviction cases. Homelessness will fall, and the strain on city services will be relieved. Or so goes the logic."

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