Only a handful of unlucky New Yorkers face eviction during the coronavirus pandemic, but the cases hint at gargantuan problems for tenants, landlords and courts as the rent comes due.
Public defenders sounded the alarm last month about the end of a moratorium on evictions, noting that roughly one-third of tenants could not pay their rent. For the moment, an avalanche of evictions has not yet overwhelmed city Housing Courts. Only 13 evictions have been filed since June 22, according to the latest data available from the Office of Court Administration.
At least eight of those cases involve allegations of unpaid rent during the pandemic or tenants remaining in apartments with leases that expired during the outbreak. They’re all being told to get out as the city struggles to recover from the pandemic and nears a 20% unemployment rate.
Public defenders who will represent tenants fighting eviction said evolving guidelines on the reopening of the court system have deterred landlords from filing suits.
“Once OCA explains and landlords understand how to file cases, the eviction tsunami will begin,” Legal Aid Society attorney Ellen Davidson said.
“When restrictions are lifted there will be tens of thousands of cases … This would overwhelm the courts and likely prompt a new wave of infections and evictions,” Davidson’s colleague Judith Goldiner added.
For Allison Prince, her husband and three kids, her only comfort is that it could take months before she’s actually evicted. A dispute over a rent increase with her upstairs landlord in a Jamaica, Queens, home boiled over in March, when her hours as a nurse at a nursing home were reduced. Her husband, who works in construction, had no work. Evictions papers charge they haven’t paid rent since.
“In March we could not pay them any more because my husband got laid off,” Prince, 43, said.
“I’ve never been placed in a position like this. I have three kids.”
The dispute has turned nasty, with both the landlord and tenant calling the cops on each other. No arrests have been made.
Prince accused the landlord of swiping a package containing her son’s graduation gown. The landlord’s daughter, Nalini Boodnie, said that was untrue and that her family was also suffering during the pandemic. Boodnie, whose last job was for a local Queens newspaper, is unable to find work. Her mother is the only one out of four currently earning a paycheck doing house cleaning and home care for the elderly.
“It’s unfair. We have bills to pay also. It’s really hard. The courts are closed and they’re not giving us a chance to get them to move out,” Boodnie, 31, said.
The Office of Court Administration announced last week it planned to resume Housing Court hearings in Brooklyn on July 27. Opening dates for other boroughs had not yet been decided. Court watchers said that the requirement landlords file hard copies of evictions by mail likely contributed to the small number of cases.
Landlords could be able to file online as soon as this week. Marika Dias, director of the Safety Net Project at the Urban Justice Center, said it was critical that tenants know that while evictions are slowly starting to be filed, the process for considering the case and obtaining an order to leave an apartment remains on pause. Gov. Cuomo has also signed legislation blocking evictions for unpaid rent accrued during the pandemic.
Dias said tenants should not leave their homes upon receiving eviction papers. They have a right to fight the case and leaving would potentially put their health at risk.
“Sometimes people will receive eviction court papers and not understand they have a right to defend their home,” she said.
“The process can be months or years. And actually right now nothing is moving.”
With Graham Rayman
