By: Shaun Abreu & Shekar Krishnan

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One of our city’s most important and effective tenant protections is in the midst of a funding crisis, and low-income New Yorkers are suffering the consequences.

NYC’s landmark Right to Counsel program, launched in 2017, was developed with the intention of ensuring that all low-income New Yorkers could access free legal representation in housing court, preventing unnecessary evictions that contribute to homelessness. 

Since 2017, there have been countless examples of the RTC program working as intended to keep New Yorkers housed.

Without free representation, the reality for a growing number of New Yorkers is that they will become homeless, growing our overburdened shelter population when we can least afford it. 

The need for RTC services has been heightened by the expiration of pandemic-related protections. With the eviction moratorium lifted and slews of people returning to New York, rent prices have skyrocketed in every borough. Also on the rise are eviction filings. The RTC program is at a crisis point. With the current funding level, providers cannot fill staff vacancies, cover costs, or come close to meeting the demand. Contracts cover only one third of cases. RTC simply cannot operate effectively under these conditions.

The RTC program doesn’t just benefit tenants, either. Landlord advocates have shared their support of the program as it helps landlords address eviction filings in a more effective and fair way. Landlord and tenant attorneys working together are more likely to keep people in their homes after an eviction filing by working out payment plans and securing one-shot deals to help tenants make rent payments, and without a tenant attorney, these alternatives to eviction are much more difficult to capture.

There is not one panacea that will fix the homelessness and housing crises in New York City. The construction of more affordable housing will help in the long term, but funding the RTC program will help thousands of low-income New Yorkers avoid homelessness now.

For many New Yorkers, access to an RTC provider is the only thing standing between them and an eviction. We cannot wait to act on this crisis. RTC is an immediate, proven solution that must be prioritized in the City’s upcoming FY24 budget.