New York City

How COVID-19 has highlighted housing issues

Understanding the tenants’ rights movement.

Excelsior unpacks the tenants’ rights movement

Excelsior unpacks the tenants’ rights movement Alex Law/City & State

Evictions have been on hold for a year. Now what?

When March begins, it will be one year since the first case of COVID-19 was detected in New York and turned the state on its head.

Businesses were closed, tourists canceled their trips to the Big Apple and the state’s economy ground to a halt. This left many of the state’s residents jobless and unable to pay their rent. Tenants’ rights advocates quickly mobilized and called on the state to enact an eviction moratorium (passed!) and to create a relief fund for public and subsidized housing (not yet created).

In mid-March last year, the state’s housing court suspended all eviction proceedings for 90 days. Soon after, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that no one in the state could be evicted until June 20. And in April, the Tenant Safe Harbor Act, sponsored by state Sen. Brad Hoylman and Assembly Member Jeffrey Dinowitz, was passed to ensure that tenants who experienced coronavirus-related financial hardship could not be evicted throughout the course of the pandemic. The suspension of eviction proceedings was renewed through the end of 2020 as the virus showed no sign of dissipating.

During the state Legislature’s special session at the end of 2020, a sweeping eviction moratorium was passed to prevent evictions as well as foreclosures due to COVID-19 related economic hardships until May 1, 2021. However, those protections are not automatically provided to tenants. Individuals must submit a “Declaration of Hardship,” either to their landlord or to the housing court in their borough if there’s already a court proceeding in progress. However, many undocumented immigrants living in New York may not be able to gain access to such hardship programs, as they may not have documentation required, such as proof of income.

Eviction freezes have allowed tenants who are unable to pay their rent to continue living in their homes, however, there remains an expectation that they will have to pay off what they owe once the moratorium has been lifted or face the possibility of an eviction. Housing advocates have been calling attention to the lack of clarity over what will happen once the moratorium ends and warn that there will be an enormous wave of evictions. “The kind of massive evictions that we could be looking at given the number of people who have not been able to pay their rent is pretty horrifying,” Judith Goldiner, head of Legal Aid Society’s civil law reform unit, told The New York Times in December.

Now, advocates are hoping to have various proposals passed at the state level to ensure that tenants continue to remain protected from eviction and accumulating rental debt.

By the numbers

COVID-19’s impact on jobs and housing

  • 122,926: The number of homeless men, women and children slept in New York City’s shelter system at one point during the city’s 2020 fiscal year
  • 200,000: The number of eviction cases filed before March 17, 2020, and were pending in New York City Housing Court, as of December
  • 1 million: The number of jobs were lost in New York in 2020
  • 1.2 million: The number of households are facing eviction throughout the state
  • More than $2 billion: The estimated amount of rent owed by New York City tenants

A micro-explainer

How do evictions work?

Evictions can happen for a number of reasons in New York, including violating a lease agreement and not paying rent. However, before an eviction can happen, landlords need to terminate the tenant’s lease by providing them with a written notice explaining why they want to do so and providing them with a deadline for when they want to end their lease. Should this prove unsuccessful, landlords must then file an eviction lawsuit to have a tenant physically removed from their home. It is illegal for any landlord to remove a tenant until after they have won their eviction lawsuit, no matter the circumstance.

Housing advocates have also been highlighting how those most at risk of losing their homes are Black and Latino tenants. Even before the pandemic began, in New York City Latinos were the most likely group to be threatened with an eviction, followed by Black, white and Asian renters. And majority-Black and majority-Latino areas experienced the highest rates of evictions between 2017 and 2019.

Evictions are cited as causes for mental health issues and financial instability. Data has indicated that those who face eviction are also much more likely to face mental health struggles and end up experiencing homelessness. Evictions can also have a serious impact on a child’s mental well-being and academic aptitude.

Rent relief, tenant protections and vouchers

The legislation being requested by housing advocates

  • State Sen. Julia Salazar has proposed a bill to cancel rental debt through the remainder of the pandemic and form a rent relief program for landlords, in an effort to place the burden to sign up for relief on landlords instead of tenants. “The vast majority of the time, tenants have less resources in order to apply for that relief than their property owners do,” Salazar said. “Putting the burden on tenants to apply has been a problem with existing and previously existing voucher programs actually being effectively implemented.”
  • Salazar also introduced a bill that hopes to instill “good cause” eviction practices, which means that landlords would have to provide their tenants with first right of refusal once their lease is up – meaning they would decide whether or not they want to renew their lease first – and would also limit the amount that landlords would be able to increase rent.
  • State Sen. Brian Kavanagh introduced legislation in July, which is still pending, aimed at creating a more robust housing voucher program that tenants struggling to pay their rent could apply for and receive financial assistance.
  • State Sen. Zellnor Myrie sponsored the Emergency Housing Stability and Tenant Displacement Prevention Act, which seeks to ban evictions and the introduction of new eviction cases for a year after COVID-19 emergency restrictions end.

Where is the affordable housing?

NYC’s homelessness crisis

Despite the ambitious affordable housing plan that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled in 2014, many housing advocates have criticized the mayor for not adequately factoring homelessness into his plan. The de Blasio administration has financed the construction or preservation of 165,590 housing units across the city that were meant to be more affordable, but housing experts said those units remain out of the price range of many New Yorkers. In a report by the Community Service Society, which analyzed Department of Housing Preservation and Development data, only 35% of units built by nonprofit developers between 2014 and 2018 were intended for extremely low-income New Yorkers. The current lack of affordable housing for low-income residents has been tied to the rise in homelessness across the five boroughs.

Housing rights advocates are hoping that an influx of permanent housing affordable to low-income New Yorkers could help diffuse the current crisis, as sending individuals to homeless shelters makes it more difficult for them to secure permanent housing. “The vacancy rate for apartments for the lowest income New Yorkers is below 1%, so the likelihood of finding a comparable unit even if you had the money is low,” Shelly Nortz, deputy executive director for policy at the Coalition for the Homeless, told Politico New York in June. “They don’t have savings to rely on, they don’t have that cushion.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.