The practical effect of a federal judge’s opinion tossing out the pandemic-era nationwide freeze on evictions may be limited — some states and localities have their own moratoriums, some courts already had ignored the national edict, and other federal judges have issued conflicting decisions. But make no mistake: Most tenants who try to fight landlords in eviction court face next-to-impossible odds, and countless Americans are at risk of losing their homes as a result.

Judge Dabney Friedrich of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia temporarily stayed her ruling hours after she issued it Wednesday, giving plaintiffs representing landlords a chance to respond to an appeal filed by the Justice Department, which wants to keep the moratorium intact.

The Justice Department is arguing on behalf of the Biden administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which had extended through June the Trump-era measure intended to protect millions of tenants who have fallen behind on their rent.

If the ban is thrown out when the stay lapses Wednesday, many landlords are likely to move swiftly to evict nonpaying tenants, many of whom have lost income and jobs over the past 15 months.

Since most landlords are represented by lawyers in housing court, and tenants very rarely are, the scales of justice tilt heavily against people in arrears on their rent. That could set the stage for tens or hundreds of thousands of people losing their homes in the coming weeks.

Mindful of that risk, Congress has appropriated more than $40 billion in emergency housing assistance, much of it for renters, as part of the administration’s rescue package enacted in March.

But getting the funds out the door is another matter — the administration has been trying to get the money disbursed by the end of June, when the CDC’s moratorium is set to expire. So Friedrich’s ruling, if it stands, could open a window for a wave of evictions beginning this month.

As laymen unversed in the intricacies of eviction law, most renters watch as their cases are dispensed with little ado by judges in housing court.

For the 90 percent or more of tenants who show up in court without a lawyer to represent them in such proceedings, relatively few know they can forestall eviction, or whittle down the amount of their arrears, by presenting facts and documentation of landlords’ own failings to maintain or repair rental properties. Often, tenants don’t even show up for court. Numerous studies have shown that when tenants do have legal representation, their chances of avoiding eviction are vastly improved.

New York and a handful of other major cities have enacted legislation granting court-appointed lawyers for impoverished tenants in eviction cases, and the available data shows the result has been a sharp drop in the number of renters who are forced from their homes.

But no state has enacted such a law, and in most large cities, landlords’ political clout, and the relative impotence of renters, keeps the deck stacked in housing court. In some cases, evictions will be justified by law and circumstances. But states shouldn’t let people be forced onto the streets because they can’t afford a lawyer.