Real Property Law
What Tennessee’s Winter Storm Docket Shows Us About Everyday Evictions
By Stephanie S. Germani, Esq.
In Nashville, Tennessee, judges created a special court calendar to help renters who fell behind on rent after a major ice storm. The “Winter Storm Housing Support Docket” is narrow and time‑limited, but it quietly illustrates a much bigger point: the kind of care and coordination courts bring to housing during a declared disaster is exactly what many tenants need in ordinary times, too.
What Tennessee Did After the Ice Storm
In early 2026, the Davidson County General Sessions Court in Nashville established a Winter Storm Housing Support Docket for tenants facing eviction after a January ice storm. The program is limited to nonpayment cases where the missed rent is tied directly to the storm. Tenants who lost income because they could not work, or who spent their rent money on replacing food after prolonged power outages. By defining that specific category, the court routes those cases into a separate, housing‑support‑focused calendar instead of the standard eviction track.
How the Docket Works
Once a tenant is identified as eligible, their case is set on the Winter Storm Housing Support Docket. There, court staff and partners help connect them to community‑based rental assistance and other resources aimed at paying down arrears and preserving the tenancy.
The docket is explicitly collaborative. Judges designed it with landlord attorneys, Metro Legal (the local government’s legal department), the Mayor’s Office, Legal Aid, and community organizations at the table. Presiding Judge Robin Kimbrough Hayes has described the typical renter as someone who might just need “three more checks” to get current and has said the court is “trying to keep as many people housed as possible.” That goal shapes how cases are handled on this calendar.
California Already Moves in Disasters But Housing Crises Aren’t Rare Events
In California, we are familiar with emergency measures: moratoria, special protections, and rental‑assistance programs often appear after wildfires, earthquakes, or public health emergencies. For example, the statewide COVID‑19 protections and rental relief programs enacted through measures like Senate Bill 91.
But the conditions that push tenants into eviction court are not limited to declared disasters. Medical bills, unstable work schedules, caregiving responsibilities, and unexpected car repairs can all have the same practical effect as a storm‑related shutdown: a short‑term loss of income that leaves someone a month or two behind on rent. At the same time, California has hundreds of thousands of people cycling through homelessness each year, even as the state’s housing stock continues to grow.1 2
The Tennessee docket underscores that when courts want to, they can treat eviction risk as a solvable problem by identifying a defined category of cases, creating a dedicated calendar, and building in access to assistance and problem‑solving. Those design choices are not inherently tied to a natural disaster. They are tools that could be applied to many nonpayment cases arising from common, predictable life events.
Bringing “Disaster‑Level” Care to Everyday Evictions
The key lesson for California is not that we need more emergency‑only programs, but that we can normalize some of the same features Tennessee used for its storm docket in our regular unlawful detainer systems. That could mean:
- Using screening and specialized calendars for nonpayment cases where tenants can realistically become current with short‑term assistance or payment plans.
- Embedding rental‑assistance referrals and legal aid connections into the routine case flow, not just when there is a declared emergency.
- Encouraging landlord attorneys and public agencies to participate in structured problem‑solving dockets that explicitly aim to keep eligible tenants housed.
Tennessee’s Winter Storm Housing Support Docket is built for one specific crisis, but the architecture offers a template for how courts can approach housing stability every day, not just when the governor declares a disaster.
Stephanie S. Germani, Esq. represents both residential landlords and tenants in all aspects of rental housing disputes and advocates for viewing the landlordtenant relationship as a partnership built on communication, problemsolving, and longterm stability.
[1] Cal. Interagency Council on Homelessness, Homeless Data Integration System (HDIS) (2024).
[2] State of California, Department of Finance, E-1 Population Estimates for Cities, Counties and the State with Annual Percent Change — January 1, 2024 and 2025. Sacramento, California, May 2025).