Clark County has one of the few court-affiliated programs in the nation to support people throughout the eviction process. Despite record eviction filings with no end in sight, the program could die in 2026.
“I think it’ll be an increased burden on the court statewide (if the program ends),” said Steven Morrison, executive director of Community Mediation Services, which operates the program.
Community Mediation Services and Clark County Superior Court formed the program, called Access to Community Eviction Support, in late 2023 after a wave of eviction filings hit Clark County. (Clark County’s Eviction Resolution Pilot Program, a pandemic-era mediation service that kept 73 percent of tenant-landlord disputes from going to court, had just sunsetted.)
In 2023 and 2024, Clark County had the highest level of eviction filings per capita out of any county in Washington.
Attorneys and the court are still struggling to keep up with the load, which is about one eviction filing for every 242 people in Clark County, according to Washington Administrative Office of the Courts data.
To slow the flow, Clark County Superior Court applied for funding from the National Center for State Courts for an eviction diversion program and received a $361,940 grant to form Access to Community Eviction Support, known as ACES. (Last year, the program’s costs totaled about $117,000, according to the court.)
Root of the problem
Although one of ACES’s goals is eviction diversion, its main goal is to resolve the root cause of an eviction, said Casey McDougall, the program’s only case manager.
ACES directs people to free legal services and rental assistance, but it also refers people to mental health services, housing resources, job and educational support, and conflict resolution.
Addressing underlying issues may prevent the eviction from occurring or keep the cycle from continuing, he said.
“I hate seeing reoccurring cases coming back to court,” McDougall said.
Alternative methods to rental assistance are especially important because rental assistance funds are running low in Clark County.
Clark County went from dishing out about $30 million in both 2021 and 2022 to $6.8 million in 2024. The number of households receiving assistance through county funds dropped nearly nine-fold. The county will devote just $2.8 million toward rental assistance over the next three years.
Even if rental assistance is available, it can often be a “Band-Aid fix,” said Morrison of Community Mediation Services. Rental assistance will likely not stave off an eviction forever if a tenant is consistently struggling, he said.
“It buys time, but it doesn’t work to alleviate the barriers that those individuals were suffering,” Morrison said.
Some landlords in Clark County agree with the holistic philosophy and reach out to McDougall on behalf of tenants before taking them to court, McDougall said.
Even if losing housing seems unavoidable, McDougall will work to prevent tenants from becoming homeless by connecting them to housing resources. Sometimes, he hears from someone only after they’ve been evicted.
“There have been times where people reach out to us, and they’re living in their car,” he said.
McDougall guides people through the eviction process, which can be complex and confusing, he said. He also helps people plan ways to get to court if they have a transportation barrier or a schedule conflict.
That’s important because a tenant not showing up for an eviction hearing almost always results in an automatic eviction, according to attorneys.
“Being prepared — really, it’s so helpful because they get to see the entire process,” McDougall said.
Funds running out
Although it doesn’t seem as though eviction filings will slow in Clark County, ACES may not exist in a year and a half. That’s when the last available funding from the National Center for State Courts runs out for the program.
Clark County Superior Court received $90,485 for ACES from Sept. 1, 2025, through Aug. 31, 2026. However, about $30,000 of these funds will be used for the creation of self-help packets for landlords and tenants.
“This way, when the grant is fully expended, it will leave behind a tangible, lasting outcome for years to come,” said Whitney Blighton, Clark County Superior Court’s senior management analyst.
Case Management Services has applied for multiple grants to fund ACES itself, Morrison said.
“But with our current political state, there’s a lot of freezes in awards and grant funding, and there’s a lot of hesitancy from funders to award programs because they don’t know if the money is going to be there,” Morrison said.
Both Morrison and McDougall surmise that an end to ACES would have a direct effect on eviction filing levels and the ability of people to navigate the eviction process.
“I would suspect we’d see a lot of confusion, and that always scares me,” McDougall said. “I feel like that would probably come back.”
