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Most New York State Evictions Halted Until May Under Sweeping New Law
By
Sydney Pereira
Published Dec 29, 2020
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By
Sydney Pereira
Published Dec 29, 2020
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New York State has halted evictions and foreclosures until May 1st under a sweeping new law that sailed through the legislature on Monday.
The State Senate and Assembly passed the measure during a special session on Monday that lawmakers acknowledged as a rarity the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Governor Andrew Cuomo quickly signed the bill, putting it into effect immediately.
“As we fight our way through the marathon this pandemic has become, we need to make sure New Yorkers still have homes to provide that protection,” Cuomo said in a statement Monday evening.
The legislation gives renters, homeowners, and property owners with 10 or fewer units about two months to sign a declaration they have lost income or dealt with increased costs, or if moving would put them or a member of their household at higher risk of COVID-19 due to an underlying medical condition.
Once the declaration is signed, the law puts the brakes on ongoing eviction or foreclosure claims and prevents new ones from being filed until May 1st. It also halts eviction cases for at least two months while giving New Yorkers an opportunity to sign the declaration. The Office of Court Administration is responsible for publishing the declaration; the OCA is currently reviewing the legislation to develop guidance for its implementation, a spokesman said.
“You do not solve a public health crisis, you do not solve an economic crisis by kicking people out on the street,” Brooklyn State Senator Zellnor Myrie, a co-sponsor of the legislation, said during remarks at the special session on Monday. “You solve it by keeping them in their homes.”
Prior to the latest law, a patchwork of protections kept many tenants from being removed from their homes under the Tenant Safe Harbor Act, an executive order bolstering that law, and a federal CDC order. Other help for renters included prohibiting late rent fees, allowing security deposits to be used for rent payments, and a recently extended rent relief program to cover partial rents under restrictive guidelines. But those protections did not protect all tenants facing eviction cases predating the pandemic.
During the sessions, Republican lawmakers grilled their Democratic colleagues, who hold the majority in both houses, and questioned whether tenants would take advantage of the legislation.
“What they’re doing is they’re taking that money and they’re going out, they’re eating out more often, they’re going places to buy large televisions, new cars, socializing,” said Assemblymember Brian Manktelow, describing how tenants are working but not paying the rent in his district. “That’s part of the reason why there’s the spread.”
Another lawmaker, Assemblymember Mark Walczyk railed against the bill as a “cancel rent” measure—which is untrue. The bill does not eliminate the debt tenants and homeowners accrue on their payments.
Walcyzk gave an example of a landlord who was traveling to Aruba during a deadly pandemic and now moved to Georgia this year because he is having difficulty collecting rent from his tenants.
Tenants have previously told Gothamist of delays obtaining jobless benefits, difficulties obtaining any relief at all due to their immigration status, and finding difficulty making ends meet with reduced income and high rents. The numbers of renters struggling are staggering. The National Council of State Housing Agencies estimates 800,000 to 1.2 million tenants are unable to pay rent and are at risk of evictions—a rent shortfall that would total $2.5 to $3.4 billion by January 2021.
"Over the course of the pandemic, hundreds of tenants have called our hotline in distress at the prospect of being evicted because of lost income or health problems," said Ava Farkas, the executive director of the Met Council on Housing. Next, Farkas says the legislature must cancel rent and mortgages and extend the moratorium to the end of 2021, both of which have been proposed in the legislature.
The latest law, with lead sponsors State Senator Brian Kavanagh and Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz, is not quite as extensive and does not bring financial relief to renters or homeowners who would still owe rent or mortgage payments come May 1st. But lawmakers said the measure buys them time between now and May to figure out how to address those issues and is an immediate measure to prevent a wave of evictions from moving forward as virus cases rise.
“It’s important that we try to address the situation not when it’s totally out of control the way the virus is totally out of control—that we take action now to prevent this possibility from happening,” said Assemblymember Jeffery Dinowitz. “Imagine how many people could be thrown out of their homes. We don’t want that to happen. We have to stop it.”
Federal aid passed last week and signed by President Donald Trump after days of delays would send $1.3 billion in rental assistance to the entire state, some of which is allocated for cities.
Cuomo said the state is still reviewing the exact amount allocated to NY and federal rules for how it can be spent. But he emphasized the state would need more aid to address its deficit.
“Three drops of water does not a bucket fill,” he said Monday. “The bucket is called a $15 billion state deficit.”
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COVID-19
evictions
coronavirus
Sydney Pereira
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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