As evictions spike, the Independent Budget Office highlights ongoing challenges in the city’s program to provide free legal representation to low-income tenants facing eviction.
People entering Brooklyn Housing Court located at 141 Livingston Street on the morning of March 20, 2023.
As evictions climb to pre-pandemic levels, most New Yorkers facing eviction may not be getting the legal representation they are entitled to, according to a new report from the New York City Independent Budget Office.
The report, released Thursday, highlights ongoing challenges with the city’s Right to Counsel program, which promises free legal counsel to low-income tenants facing eviction.
But the report finds that only a fraction—30 percent—of eligible tenants got full legal representation under the program last year.
The report’s authors argue that a rapid expansion in eligibility, changes to eviction law and practices, and plateauing funding for the program means fewer eligible tenants receive help.
“It’s subject to funding availability and staffing availability,” said Independent Budget Office Senior Research and Strategy Officer Sarah Parker. “In some ways that ‘Right to Counsel’ language is a goal, but not a mandate.”
Only half of tenants facing eviction appear in court
To get Right to Counsel in the first place, tenants must show up in court. When they don’t, the housing court can issue a default judgement, an automatic ruling in their landlord’s favor.
There were over 125,000 eviction cases filed in 2024, according to the report.
But despite efforts to educate tenants about their rights, court appearance rates are stubbornly low. Just about half of tenants facing eviction show up, according to IBO’s report. That figure has remained around 50 percent since the program began in 2017.
Lower representation rate
When tenants do show up, they don’t always get lawyers. The rate of representation for eligible tenants plunged 40 percent after the pandemic, according to IBO.
“Outcomes are vastly improved in housing court if you as a tenant have legal representation,” said Parker.
Coming out of the pandemic in 2022, when eviction moratoria were still in place, state and federal initiatives like New York’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) provided a social safety net. At the time, a smaller subset of the city was eligible for Right to Counsel, and just over half of tenants had a lawyer.
In 2024, just one out of every three eligible tenants citywide facing eviction got legal representation, IBO found.
Of 62,000 cases where tenants appeared in court last year, IBO estimated 50,000 were eligible for the program. But under 15,000 got full representation in court.
Some areas of the city were better served than others. In the last quarter of 2024, 46 percent of Queens households served by the program got full representation in court compared to 31 percent in the Bronx, according to a report from the Office of Civil Justice.
Earlier this year, Comptroller Brad Lander’s office found that the top 10 zip codes for evictions were all in the South and Central Bronx.
In criminal court, Parker points out, cases cannot proceed if a client is not represented. But housing court cases can go forward without representation, despite the city’s promise of counsel to those who qualify for it.
“This is a program that is called right to counsel, but it did not legally establish a right on the part of the tenant to counsel,” said Parker.
As the number of people who received a lawyer to represent them in court declined, more clients used “brief assistance”—a one-time consultation conducted at court or through a hotline.
That type of assistance did not include representation in housing court, but its use grew 380 percent from 2022 to 2023.
Activists rallied outside Brooklyn Housing Court last month in support of more funding for the Right to Counsel initiative on the morning of March 20, 2023. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)
More clients, same funding
Spending on the Right to Counsel program has increased every year since it started rolling out in 2018, to just under $150 million last year. But the amount has not kept pace with the demand for lawyers.
The number of people eligible for the program tripled from 2019 to 2024, IBO estimates, as legislators expanded eligibility to all tenants with income below 200 percent of the federal poverty level—about $62,000 for a family of four—and to all tenants 60 years or older.
As the program expanded citywide between 2019 and 2024, the number of eligible tenants tripled, increasing 222 percent, according to IBO’s estimate. Program funding went up only 129 percent.
Lawyers working on the program say those funding deficiencies stretch them thin.
“People were leaving because of the case loads, and this is really difficult work,” said Munonyedi Clifford, the attorney in charge of the Legal Aid Society’s citywide housing practice.
“With more money, you can get more lawyers, and you can get more qualified lawyers,” they added.
Longer cases
After the pandemic, eviction cases are taking longer to resolve, IBO observed. Longer cases may actually help improve outcomes for tenants, but can further strain Right to Counsel providers.
IBO found that before the pandemic, 93 percent of cases had a first decision within six months. But in 2023 and 2024, only 54 percent reached a decision within that time frame.
According to one of the report’s authors, Claire Salant, cases are taking longer because of 2019 changes to state law that gave tenants more time to respond to eviction proceedings. But courts are also stretched thin, with a packed calendar and few clerks to schedule hearings, the report said.
“There’s clearly a disconnect between the intent of the program as it was passed in City Council, and as providers and advocates talked about it all when it happened, and where it currently fits today,” said Parker.
As funding plateaus, need may only grow. Evictions recently reached their highest monthly rate since 2018, according to a Gothamist report.
Advocates warn that federal cuts to Medicare and Medicaid could further stress the budgets of low-income households in New York City.
“It’s heartbreaking. Tenants who are eligible for representation and should be getting representation aren’t getting representation because there’s not enough lawyers doing this work right now,” said Clifford.
To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Patrick@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org
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