Queens resident faces eviction, calls for Good Cause to pass
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Dawn White and her husband say they’ve been victim to landlord harassment, including when a tree was chopped down and placed in their driveway, and would be protected better if the Good Cause Eviction bill passed the legislature and was signed into law. Photo via White
By Jacob Kaye
Dawn White has lived in the same Rosedale home with her family for two decades. She and her husband have raised their two kids there and become part of the neighborhood, White said. But last year, her former landlord sold the two-family house, putting the White’s future in the home in jeopardy.
White’s new landlord has been attempting to evict both the Whites and the second family living in the home in order to convert the house into a three-family building, according to White.
“It definitely caught me by surprise,” White said. “I've been here for 20 years, I didn't know what hell was going on.”
Under current state law, tenants in non-rent regulated buildings do not have a right to a new lease and landlords can attempt to evict tenants for whatever reason they’d like.
However, under a new bill in the state legislature, that could change. The Good Cause Eviction bill, introduced in the State Senate by Senator Julia Salazar and co-sponsored by Queens Senators Toby Ann Stavisky, Michael Gianaris, John Liu, Jessica Ramos and James Sanders, would make it so landlords could only evict tenants without a “good cause.” Those causes include a tenant failing to pay rent, a violation of a substantial obligation of the tenancy, causing a nuisance or using the home for illegal purposes. Under the bill, a property owner could also evict a tenant if the owner or relatives want to move into the property.
Landlord groups, including the Real Estate Board of New York, have spoken out against the bill.
“The proposal to enact [the Good Cause Eviction bill] would lead to the deterioration of the housing stock and severely discourage the creation of multifamily housing, exacerbating the affordability crisis,” REBNY said in testimony to the State Senate in Feb. 2020.
However, the bill has come to prominence following the expiration of the state’s eviction moratorium and has the support of a number of lawmakers and tenant advocacy groups, including the Legal Aid Society, which is representing White in her legal battle against her new landlord.
“We have a tenant, a good tenant who's lived in an apartment for 20 years, but this landlord has decided to chop up the apartments in the small building to even smaller and smaller apartments so that they can rent spaces,” said Ellen Davidson, a staff attorney in the Civil Law Reform Unit at the Legal Aid Society.
“And at this point, this landlord can remove this family,” Davidson added.
‘A violent act’
White and her husband moved into the Rosedale building 20 years ago. Their 18- and 19-year-old children have spent their entire lives there. Though White says she was told by the building’s previous owner that they would never sell, he died several years ago and his children sold the building at the start of 2021.
“They didn't even give me proper notice,” White said.
White, who lost her job at the start of the pandemic and only recently again became employed, alleges in court filings that the new landlord, Adrian Briscoe, engaged in multiple forms of harassment in an effort to get the Whites to leave.
Briscoe could not be reached for comment.
He allegedly began moving some of the White’s property from the garage connected to the building, into the backyard, putting several refrigerators in the garage instead. White says that Briscoe allegedly ordered a tree in front of the house to be cut down, but instead of getting rid of the refuse, they piled it in the driveway, blocking the Whites from using it.
“To me, that's a violent act,” White said.
The Rosedale resident said that the entire episode has had a large emotional effect on her family.
“I feel like a failure as a parent,” White said. “I feel bullied, disrespected and discriminated against.”
“Everybody has a will to fight and it's like you lose your will to fight,” she added.
Davidson said that she’s hopeful that the bill will pass the legislature and be signed into law by Governor Kathy Hochul. Doing so would not only protect tenants, but take a strain off of the city’s Housing Courts and the state’s economy, she said.
“I think that in a time where we seem to be coming out of this COVID crisis and entering a period of recovery, providing people with stable housing is a necessary step toward that recovery,” Davidson said. “On the other hand, if this bill doesn't pass, and we just see tens of thousands of tenants evicted, then we’ll have all the consequences of eviction happen to so many residents in New York State. It's going to put a drag on any economic recovery that we might hope for coming out of COVID.”
