balancing the scales of justice for
tenants and homeowners
Losing stable housing is incredibly traumatic.
Individual and families who lose a home can encounter severe negative impacts on employment, education, and mental health, causing and/or exacerbating poverty
Many eviction lawsuits have little or no merit.
Landlords, who are almost always represented by attorneys, often bring eviction lawsuits with little or no merit in order to create more vacant apartments, displacing long-term tenants such as seniors and families with children.
Without lawyers, tenants face long odds in resolving cases in Housing Court.
Poverty is too often penalized—tenants with low-income are often a minor crisis away from being evicted, having to make hard choices between paying rent, buying food, or medication.
NYLAG is part of Right to Counsel (RTC), a program and law passed in 2017 that provides free legal representation for qualified tenants facing eviction in housing court. From 2017 to 2018, the rate of eviction in RTC zip codes declined by five times more than in non-RTC zip codes, demonstrating the profound impact of tenants having legal representation in Housing Court.
How NYLAG balances the scales of justice to keep families in their homes:
1,280
evictions prevented by NYLAG
837
foreclosures stopped by NYLAG.