With evictions looming, advocates urge NYC to accelerate universal right to counsel
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Advocates continue to fight for universal right to counsel as they warn of a massive wave of evictions.
Photo via Right to Counsel Coalition
By Rachel Vick
For months, the COVID-19 pandemic left Brooklyn resident Felix Guzman out of work and unable to keep up with his rent. When he finally secured a job, the pay still wasn’t enough to catch up on the arrears that mounted over seven months.
Then Guzman received a letter from his landlord: pay up or face eviction proceedings.
“The landlord is able to flip these apartments, take good people out of these apartments and then when they are displaced they enter a shelter system that there is no way out of,” Guzman said during a meeting with tenant advocates and local lawmakers Wednesday. “Why is permanent displacement more feasible to the city than actually providing assistance?”
What he and thousands of renters in his position need, he said, is a lawyer.
Guzman was one of dozens of tenants who participated in a meeting to discuss New York City’s pending wave of COVID-fueled evictions and to urge the city to speed up the expansion of the universal right to counsel in Housing Court.
The initiative became law last year and has gradually reached zip codes throughout the five boroughs, but is not scheduled for full implementation until 2022.
That’s too late for tenants who face money judgements and potential evictions now, said Councilmembers Helen Rosenthal, Brad Lander and Vanessa Gibson, who each participated in the virtual summit. They pledged to support a bill introduced earlier this month that would immediately expand the universal right to counsel in Housing Court.
“The stories that you're giving us tonight have been so impactful, and in many ways you have us all convinced. This is such a critical issue now,” Rosenthal said.
Queens residents in zip codes 11373 (Elmhurst), 11385 (Ridgewood), 11433 (Jamaica), 11434 (Springfield Gardens, Rochdale) and 11691 (Far Rockaway, Edgemere) are currently eligible for free legal counsel in Housing Court holdover or nonpayment proceedings.
The program would not have applied to the first tenant evicted in Queens since the start of the pandemic. On Nov. 30, a city marshal executed an eviction in a third-floor apartment on Corona Ave. in Corona, located in zip code 11368.
Access to an attorney can have a significant impact for tenants in Housing Court proceedings. Up to 86 percent of tenants with legal representation are able to remain in their homes.
Event attendees also discussed the goal of cancelling rent for tenants affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic crisis. Gibson, a candidate for Bronx borough president, said she and her colleagues have urged state lawmakers to take up a measure erasing rent arrears and directing money to small landlords still forced to pay mortgages and property taxes.
”Cancelling rent is a concept we all believe in and support you from City Council, but we have to push Albany, we have to push the Assembly, and if there's anything we can do at the council level to support that effort as they return in January we want to do that,” Gibson said.
An eviction ban remains in place for tenants whose cases were pending as of March 7, but marshals can begin evicting tenants whose cases were adjudicated prior to that date. The case of the Corona tenant evicted Nov. 30 began in 2019, city records show. At least seven other evictions have taken place in New York City since Nov. 15.
There have been 40,000 new cases filed in Housing Courts across New York state since June 22, Riddick said. A report by the Furman Center found that just under 10,000 eviction cases were filed in New York City between June 20 and Sept. 20.
“Evictions are violent, evictions are cruel and unnecessary, and during a pandemic they are deadly,” said Flatbush Tenants Association organizer Ruth Riddick.
Additional reporting by David Brand.
