Renters have been jamming the phone lines at the Tenants Union of Washington State for years. Once you get through, hotline workers explain your legal rights in dealing with a landlord who refuses to fix plumbing or tries to illegally evict you. But since July 1, fewer callers can get through. Two employees, including the director, left last month when the group lost most of its funding, leaving only two part-time staffers to answer the phones 10 hours a week. Now, Tenants Union board members are playing two roles: volunteering for the hotline and running a fundraising blitz to save the 32-year-old group.

Last year, King County slashed funding to human services from the 2009 budget to manage a $93 million deficit. The county sustained the Tenants Union and a handful of other organizations in a "lifeboat" through the end of June, but that funding has run out. Board members realized that if they don't raise $25,000 by July 16—which would keep the Tenants Union afloat through the end of the year while they find new funding—they will be forced to dissolve the organization.

How would losing the Tenants Union affect the average renter? "It might mean being at your landlord's mercy," says board member Lisa Herbold, who held a "raise the rent" party in her home on July 5, bringing in $2,600 (the group has another $10,000 pledged). (Herbold works in city council member Nick Licata's office; two more Tenants Union board members also work in city government.) "The only other organization locally is Solid Ground, and they are already taking more calls than they can handle." When I called Solid Ground, a social-service nonprofit, a receptionist said no one could take my call because "everyone here is so busy."