Harris County adds 2 new court positions to help alleviate eviction case hearing wait times
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) -- Relief may be coming soon for tenants and landlords who have waited months for their eviction cases to be heard in court. On Tuesday, Harris County commissioners voted in favor of using more than $1 million in COVID recovery funds to add two new court positions to help alleviate the wait time.
The strain is also being felt by the county's civil court judges, as evident by what Judge Manpreet Monica Singh shared about the backlog while speaking at Commissioner's Court. She presides over Harris County Civil Court at Law No. 4.
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"We were receiving about 20 evictions per week in each court, and last week, we each received 100 within our boards. We used to be able to hear them within 20 days, and now, with the backlog, it comes to the place where we hear it every 60 days," Singh said.
Singh is one of four judges who presides over the county's civil courts that deal with different types of cases, including eviction appeals. But before evictions get to that point, they go through one of 16 Justice of the Peace courts.
ABC13's Nick Natario sat in on eviction hearings in Judge Wanda Adams' courtroom for Harris County Justice of the Peace Precinct 7, Place 1, about four weeks ago. It ended up being a day when she had a record 140-plus eviction cases on the docket.
One tenant spoke about how tough it was being in limbo and dealing with the uncertainty of where she would live.
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Data from JanuaryAdvisors, who track eviction cases across Harris County, shows that numbers have increased from a weekly average of 500 in 2021 to 1,500 in 2022, where it has remained to this day.
Experts said this is due to a combination of factors, including a lack of affordable housing. Also, resources that existed during the pandemic are now gone, such as eviction moratoriums, rental assistance, and stimulus checks.
The uptick may put landlords in a position where they are losing out on rent. Tenants may be dealing with the uncertainty of where they're going to live and financial stress from a lengthy legal process.
That's why Commissioner Lesley Briones said it was a unanimous vote among her colleagues to pass $1,091,000 in ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) Local Fiscal Recovery Funds to create two positions for the county's civil courts. The funding allows for a new associate judge and court coordinator through the end of 2026.
Briones used to be the judge for Harris County Civil Court at Law No. 4 and handled many eviction appeals cases.
"We hear a lot of 'justice delayed is justice denied.' Our goal as helping to run Harris County is to make sure that the justice we are administering is fair, equitable, and efficient. This will help the cases be heard sooner," said Briones. "As someone who used to sit on the bench, this is of particular importance."
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