Legal Aid’s Judith Goldiner and REBNY’s James Whelan have teamed up. (Getty, REBNY, Legal Aid)
Talk about strange bedfellows. United by a desire to help New Yorkers pay rent and thus, make landlords’ lives easier the Real Estate Board of New York and Legal Aid Society have teamed up on a new lobbying push.
The two groups have joined forces with an existing effort, dubbed “Project Parachute,” that has pressured lawmakers to provide more rental assistance to tenants who are struggling because of the pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported. Enterprise Community Partners launched the effort, which now has more than 100 participants.
Landlords say that some tenants are taking advantage of eviction ban
Accuse them of refusing to pay rent though even though they still have income
One landlord says the trend is spreading like a cancer as tenants learn about it
National survey finds 294,224 fewer households paid rent in January from 2020
Joe Biden last week extended a federal ban on evictions until March 31
It s unclear whether there will be mass evictions when the ban expires
Housing groups and think tanks have filed legal documents supporting the owners of New York’s rent stabilized apartments in their fight against 2019 rent laws they believe are unconstitutional.
The so-called amicus briefs back the Community Housing Improvement Program (CHIP) and the Rent Stabilization Association in their federal lawsuit against the City of New York.
The lawsuit, filed in July 2019 and currently on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, challenges regulations the owners believe have harmed owners and tenants and constrained the city’s housing market for over five decades.
The legal challenge, filed against the City and State in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, asserts that the RSL violates the Due Process and Takings protections of the United States Constitution, depriving property owners of their constitutional rights. It was dismissed by the District Court in September 2020 on the ground that Second Circ
The Download: A new survey conducted by the Community Housing Improvement Program measuring the rent crisis caused by the pandemic found that New York City apartment tenants are more than $1 billion in debt from missed rent payments. This staggering figure indicates that federal stimulus packages and unemployment benefits inadequately cover the growing financial burden of unpaid rent bills across thousands of households. The Covid-19 relief package, passed in December by Congress, allocated $1.3 billion in rental assistance for New York State, though the amount reserved for New York City remains unclear.
In the coming weeks, state and city housing agencies are expected to roll out their distribution plans for assistance. In response, tenant and landlord advocacy groups have lobbied for more governmental help amid a second wave of Covid-19.