The housing crisis – El Diario NY

At the height of the COVID pandemic, laws were passed aimed at protecting New York renters from eviction. The temporary suspension of landlords’ rights to evict obviously became a hot-button issue for landlords and a much-needed relief for New York families.

However, without these protections, things would have been much worse for underemployed and unemployed renters, resulting in a domino effect on the economy and homelessness. So why did it take a pandemic to push for such protections when the same barriers to housing security existed long before and even now after the pandemic?

Although New York City landlords are making record profits, we are witnessing a determination to recoup what landlords consider pandemic “losses.” This greed-fueled resentment is driving homeowners to adopt both legal and illegal tactics.

Conflicts over housing are increasingly common. Community resources to help tenants, as well as the housing court system, are overloaded with complaints. While it should be a vital resource within our justice system, housing court has become inaccessible and unaffordable for New Yorkers. To make matters worse, more and more housing court attorneys are getting tired and moving on to other areas of the law.

Tenants are often forced to take time off work to enforce the terms of their own lease amid landlord negligence. In some cases, delays in repairs or abatement are actually a health risk for tenants. Mold, mildew, rodent, and cockroach infestations are common complaints in family court. Whether the delays are due to an overloaded system or the plaintiff’s inability to take time off work to attend a court hearing, having to sacrifice your physical health or livelihood is not an acceptable dilemma to be forced into.

As a renter in Sunset Park, it took me a long time to find an apartment I could afford and that was big enough for me and my five children. In the eight years we have lived here, our landlord has not made any repairs or investments in our apartment. I asked the owner to bring in an exterminator due to the roach and rat infestation, but to no avail. When we had had enough, I filed paperwork in family court in an attempt to force our landlord to honor the lease. I was extremely disappointed to discover that my claims were unenforceable because our apartment was considered “illegal.” Not only is our landlord gaming the system to maximize illegal rental space, but there is now no mechanism to enforce my rights as a tenant and keep my family safe.

My story is not uncommon. Evictions are the highest they have ever been and continue to rise since the pandemic-era eviction moratorium was lifted in January of this year. That’s why we need good cause eviction, which forces landlords to demonstrate the need for a rent increase and gives tenants the ability to challenge minor, discriminatory or retaliatory evictions. We need to stop corporate owners from maximizing their profits using loopholes.

And we need genuine housing court reform to protect tenants’ rights to legal recourse. The Center for Popular Democracy, along with its affiliates including CUFFH, is building a national alliance of renters across the country, including New York, to demand permanently affordable, tenant-owned, green social housing and a nationwide social housing authority. state to solve the housing crisis in our country.

Vulnerable New Yorkers suffer from predatory landlords, an overburdened court system, and an economy that continues to leave them behind. They deserve better from their city.

Claudia Valdivia is a tenant and member of CUFFH