Testimony: How to Address NYC’s Looming Eviction Crisis
Oksana Mironova
Thank you to the New York City Council’s Committee of General Welfare for holding a hearing on the impact of the expiration of the eviction moratorium. My name is Oksana Mironova and I am a housing policy analyst at the Community Service Society of New York (CSS). We are a leading nonprofit that promotes economic opportunity for New Yorkers. We use research, advocacy, and direct services to champion a more equitable city and state.
We have been closely tracking eviction rates in New York City for decades. Before the pandemic began, the role of evictions in long-term housing instability among Black and Latinx tenants was well documented by both organizers and scholars. According to CSS’s 2019 Unheard Third survey—the longest running scientific survey of low-income communities in the nation—Latinx and Black tenants were more likely to be threatened with an eviction than white or Asian tenants.
The pandemic exacerbated pre-existing racial and class inequalities in our city. Today, nearly 220,000 renter households have been sued for eviction in housing court. Further, in our 2021 Unheard Third survey, we found that:
- More than one in four low-income tenants are behind on their rent during the pandemic, with Black and Latinx tenants – and particularly women – at greatest risk for long term consequences as a result of rent debt.
- In the past year, rents increased for 43 percent of tenants below the federal poverty line.
- Rents rose at a higher rate for low-income tenants of color than for low-income white tenants: 49 percent of Asian tenants and 41 percent of Black and Latinx tenants experienced rent increases, compared to 32 percent of white tenants.
- More than one third of low-income tenants reported that they were worried they would be evicted or forced to move when the eviction moratorium ends.
Additional analysis is included in our recent report, Low-Income New Yorkers are an Inch Away from Eviction: How to Address Rent Debt and Eviction Pressure to Keep Them Housed.
The courts have begun to work through a growing backlog of eviction filings, and landlords are suing more and more tenants for eviction each day. We will see a growing number of both informal self-evictions and formal, marshal-executed evictions in a few months.
Below are recommendations for easing the city’s looming eviction crisis:
Right to Counsel
New York was the first city in the country to implement a Right to Counsel (RTC) law. Between 2017, and 2019 evictions in zip codes where Right to Counsel was implemented declined by 29 percent, compared to a 16 percent decline in zip codes with similar eviction, poverty, and rental rates.
Following the implementation of RTC, we worked closely with the Right to Counsel Coalition to advocate for Local Law 53, which requires the City to work with tenant organizers to educate tenants about RTC. It was supposed to go into effect in November 2021, but Local Law 53 was not implemented. The city is now out of compliance and the law needs to be implemented immediately. Right to Counsel is extremely effective at keeping people housed, but it does not work if tenants do not know to take advantage of it. Trusted, neighborhood-based groups are the key to getting information to tenants facing eviction.
Eviction Case Backlog
Eviction cases are often complex and require both time and nuance. Unfortunately, New York City’s housing courts are struggling with a backlog of eviction filings, creating a dangerous environment for tenants. In the Bronx, judges used to hear one case every 30 minutes in their Right to Counsel intake part; now they hear two cases every 15 minutes. This is an impossible position for legal services organizations, leading to inadequate attention for tenants.
In the coming months, housing court should only move the cases for tenants with legal representation, and adjourn all others, until legal services organizations have more capacity. Under the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act (HSTPA), housing court judges have the flexibility to adjourn cases. Similar adjournments happen in parallel court systems, like Family Court.
Rental Assistance
Rental assistance can act as a key mechanism for both keep renters facing eviction housed and to help homeless New Yorkers find homes. There are many federal and state rental assistance programs, the largest of which is the Section 8 voucher program. CityFHEPS is the rental assistance program that the city has the most direct control over. Unfortunately, there are a number of administrative and enforcement obstacles for using CityFHEPS for eviction prevention. Most crucially, New Yorkers must stay in a shelter for ninety days before becoming eligible and are faced with systemic source of income discrimination from landlords. Further, undocumented New Yorkers are not eligible for CityFHEPS.
In 2019, only 20% of New Yorkers who received CityFHEPS were able to secure housing, and the average shelter stay was 450 days. According to a recent report by Neighbors Together and Unlock NYC, An Illusion of Choice: How Source of Income Discrimination and Voucher Policies Perpetuate Housing Inequality, tenants who gain access to vouchers are forced into lower quality units with higher rates of HPD violations, compared to non-voucher holders.
The city should work to expand eligibility to CityFHEPS to effectively prevent evictions and ramp up enforcement of housing code and source of income discrimination laws, to prevent voucher holders from facing homelessness.
Abolishing & Replacing the Tax Lien Sale
Today, the authorization for the city’s tax lien sale comes to end. This harmful, Giuliani-era policy:
- accelerates the loss of equity in low-income communities of color
- fuels speculation in the housing market
- lessens the city’s leverage over delinquent landlords and subjects their tenants to harmful conditions
- squanders opportunities to create affordable housing and community facilities
- and privatizes core aspects of city government
For low-income tenants, having a building in the tax lien sale results in months or years of instability and physical decline. Often, financially distressed buildings are purchased by speculative investors who both withdraw services and hike up rents, resulting in terrible living conditions and eventual displacement. In gentrifying neighborhoods, unscrupulous investors in distressed properties often try to evict long-term Black and Latinx tenants, and bring in higher-income white tenants.
The city must end this harmful program. It must replace it with an alternative tax collection system that stabilizes rental buildings facing tax foreclosure by turning them into social housing.
Community Opportunity to Purchase Act
The city’s eviction crisis may have another downstream effect: if rent arrears persist, many landlords will likely be unable to meet their mortgage payments, setting off another foreclosure crisis. The Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA), introduced by Councilmember Rivera in the last session, gives nonprofit organizations and community land trusts a right of first refusal for the purchase of rental buildings in New York City. Tenants in Washington, D.C. have had this right for over 30 years. San Francisco recently passed similar legislation and the neighboring municipalities of Berkeley and Oakland are not far behind.
Right of first refusal laws are built on several interconnected pillars: neighborhood stabilization, permanent affordability, community wealth, and resident control. New York City should pass a similar law, giving tenants more power during their building’s sale, because ownership changes make tenants vulnerable to eviction and displacement. When tenants can intervene in the building sale, they gain power to negotiate for better conditions, reasonable rents, or even to bring in a responsible landlord.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
If you have any questions about my testimony or CSS’s research, please contact me at omironova@cssny.org.