Press Release
CSS Brief: 225,000 Additional New Yorkers at Risk of Eviction
Recommends passage of statewide `Right to Counsel’ and the Winter Eviction Moratorium bill
The Community Service Society of New York’s (CSS) annual Unheard Third survey finds a rise in eviction attempts and a return to assembly-line style justice in NYS Housing Courts.
Most notably, New York City entered 2023 with more than 260,000 eviction cases filed in its five housing courts. From the 2022 Unheard Third survey, we can extrapolate that an additional 225,000 New Yorkers are on the cusp of an eviction because they owe back rent, anticipate falling behind on their rent again in the next three months, and have less than $500 in savings.
In a new brief, “Assembly-Line “Justice”: Eviction Attempts Reach Record Highs in 2022,” CSS housing policy analysts Oksana Mironova and Samuel Stein draw on data from the 2022 Unheard Third survey to show that in 2022, 15 percent of all tenants were targeted for eviction, the highest share in a decade. More than half (52 percent) of tenants threatened with evictions were moderate- to middle-income in 2021-2022, a 15-point post-pandemic increase.
Tens of thousands of tenants are facing evictions without legal support they are legally entitled to. This is a result of the lack of legislative action in Albany in 2022 to expand Right to Counsel and the failure by the State’s court system to slow down eviction cases in housing court.
To reverse this trend, the brief calls for the passage of Statewide Right to Counsel Law (S.6678C/A.7570), which would help curb evictions across the state, and the Winter Eviction Moratorium bill, which would ensure that no one goes homeless at a time when death from exposure is a real threat in many parts of New York State.
“With evictions and displacement on the rise, New York State courts and legislature must take immediate action,” said David R. Jones, CSS President and CEO. “We know that 84 percent of tenants with access to counsel in eviction cases were able to stay in their homes. New York must honor, fund, and expand the Right to Counsel law and pass the much-needed winter eviction moratorium.”
Families with kids especially vulnerable to evictions
Twenty three percent of families with kids under 18 faced evictions in 2022. Families with children under 18 account for nearly half of attempted evictions, while making up only 28 percent of New York City’s households.
Poverty rates are much higher for children than for adults in New York State overall. The expiration of federal stimulus supports, like the expanded child tax credit, will undoubtedly further exacerbate the impact of evictions on children.