Advocates Say Change in S.C. Evictions Law Could Help Some Find Housing

Skylar Laird/S.C. Daily Gazette

COLUMBIA — When Robynne Campbell tried to move, she faced rejection after rejection when landlords saw the number of evictions filed against her.

Campbell settled nearly all the evictions filed between 2010 and 2018 outside of court, or judges had them dismissed. Yet, they still appear when searching her name in the Richland County court system.

A MORE Justice sign calling for the passage of a bill wiping eviction records clean sits outside Reid Chapel AME Church in Columbia, S.C., on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)

“Here I am after years and years and years, and you’re still holding this on me,” Campbell told the SC Daily Gazette.

A bipartisan bill proposed in the House would require the state to remove from public access after 30 days any eviction filings that do not result in an actual court order telling the tenant to get out. Any cases that did result in an eviction order from a judge or were settled in court would be removed from public view after six years under the proposal.

That would wipe Campbell’s record clean.

The 41-year-old mother of four received two court-ordered evictions, also called writs of ejectment, within three months of each other in 2016, according to court records. Another seven are listed as settled, dismissed or disposed.

None of the filings, including the two court orders, resulted in Campbell actually getting kicked out of her home, she said.

Still, the long list of cases that pops up anytime someone searches Campbell’s name in the Richland County court filing system “looks so very ugly,” she said.

South Carolina appeared to have among the highest rates of eviction filings in the country in 2018, with about 23 of every 100 renters having an eviction filed against them, according to the most recent available data from the Eviction Lab at Princeton University.

Comparisons are hard to draw because different states, and even different counties within states, handle eviction cases in different ways, Stateline has reported.

South Carolina’s data, released after the state NAACP settled a lawsuit over the use of automated technology to collect eviction data, doesn’t include outcomes for those cases.

In 2024, more than 126,000 South Carolina renters had some sort of eviction filed against them in court, meaning they might face difficulty in renting in the future, according to the Legal Services Corporation’s Civil Court Data Initiative.

As costs continue to rise, paying rent each month is becoming increasingly difficult for many people, said Rev. Carey A. Grady, pastor of Reid Chapel AME Church in Columbia and an advocate for affordable housing.

Landlords may use a filing to put pressure on tenants to pay their rent, even if they have no intention of actually kicking them out of the property, Grady said.

“One filing can haunt you and your family for the rest of your life,” Grady said.

An eviction can be devastating, whether or not the landlord follows through on it, said Mary Ann Fey, pastor at St. John Neumann Catholic Church and a board member for advocacy group MORE Justice, which is short for Midlands Organized Response for Equity and Justice.

A blighted record can mean people have no place to go, continuing a cycle of hardship, she said.

Access to housing has remained a top concern of Richland County residents since the group formed a decade ago and began holding annual community meetings, Fey said.

This year’s “community problems assembly” is set for Oct. 30.

“Housing is foundational,” Fey said. “When families can not access it, everything else — employment, education, health — becomes harder, and especially harder on children.”

People who have managed to turn their lives around shouldn’t stay beholden to the struggles they faced previously, Fey said.

“This bill does not erase accountability,” Fey said. “Instead, it ensures that the records relied on in making housing decisions are accurate, timely and truly reflective of a person’s current situation.”

Many filings don’t result in actual evictions, and even if they do, they may not reflect a person’s current economic status, said Rep. Carla Schuessler, the bill’s primary sponsor.

Unlike certain criminal charges and bankruptcies, which can be expunged, eviction filings stay with a person forever, often preventing them from finding stable housing in the future, even if they can pay rent, the Myrtle Beach Republican said. 

Mary Ann Fey, a Columbia pastor and MORE Justice board member, advocates for the passage of a bill to wipe eviction histories from the public during a rally outside Reid Chapel AME Church in Columbia, S.C., on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)

As a former executive director of Horry County’s Habitat for Humanity, Schuessler worked with people who struggled to find housing they could afford because of bad credit histories or eviction records, she said. Removing some of those records could help get more people into homes, she said.

“There’s so much conversation with the housing market and affordable housing and workforce housing and inflation,” Schuessler said. “This is something we can do to help South Carolinians to better their lives.”

Nonpayment isn’t the only reason landlords might file an eviction, which costs $40 and requires little effort on their part, said Sue Berkowitz, director of Appleseed Legal Justice Center, which helped craft the bill.

People who live paycheck to paycheck may consistently pay late because their income doesn’t come in by the first of the month, or a landlord may file an eviction for a different lease violation, such as an extra person staying in the property, Berkowitz said.

She thinks the legislation should be altered to erase eviction records from public scrutiny sooner: three years, instead of six.

A person’s life can drastically change over six years, she said.

“Look back at how your life was six years ago, and it might be very different now,” Berkowitz said.

After several years of financial and personal hardship that led to the eviction filings against her, Campbell is back in stable housing, she said.

She works as a court mediator, helping other people settle disputes, including about evictions, and advocates with MORE Justice. She wants to raise awareness of the eviction process, making sure people know how to look up their own legal histories and what to do if their landlord files an eviction notice.

Arguing against eviction proceedings can be a stressful and time-consuming process that often involves missing work, and judges make default rulings in favor of landlords if tenants don’t show up, Campbell said.

On top of the difficulty in finding housing, an eviction record can take an emotional toll, Campbell said.

She often feels like a failure for the times in her life when she struggled to support her four children, two of whom are in college and two of whom are in elementary school.

She shares a Columbia house with her mother, and though the two remain mostly independent, Campbell wishes she could find her own place, she said.

Removing her eviction records could help with that, she said.

“I think just having this bill is a start,” Campbell said. “It’s a start at some change.”

The South Carolina Daily Gazette is a nonprofit news site providing nonpartisan reporting and thoughtful commentary. We strive to shine a light on state government and how political decisions affect people across the Palmetto State.