Eviction-Law Protest Hits Mark

By Kenny Schaeffer

October 20 marked the effective date of the "Mandatory Eviction" law, 122 days after it as signed by Gov. George Pataki as part of his assault on rent protections and affordable housing. It was a day that began with live coverage of Manhattan Housing Court before it opened on New York One and Channel 5, and ended with word from Albany of movement towards repeal of the measure, which is almost certain to cause massive evictions and increased homelessness.

Tenants, advocates and attorneys blanketed the housing courts in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan when they opened so that both judges and unrepresented tenants would be informed about the provisions of the new law, its precise limitations, and its constitutional defects. One issue was whether judges would apply the new law retroactively to cases which were brought before it went into effect, because in many situations the new law prevents judges from halting any scheduled evictions unless the tenant has paid all the rent demanded.

Protests Outside Court

At 8:30 a.m., a press conference was held denouncing the law by Met Council, the City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court, the Legal Aid Society, Assemblymembers Ed Sullivan and Scott Stringer (D-Manhattan), Bill Perkins on behalf of the NAACP, Mia Lipsit from Councilmember C. Virginia Fields' office, and Meg Black, representing State Sen. Franz Leichter (D-Manhattan). As the courts opened, every tenant was given an information sheet advising them on how to protect themselves.

More than 100 tenants and organizers demonstrated in front of Manhattan Housing Court at noon, as Assemblymember Deborah Glick (D-Manhattan), Wilson Spencer of the Met Council Research and Education Fund and labor-union activists joined the crowd outside 111 Centre Street. Television cameras from New York One and channels 4, 5, 7, 11 and 47 confirmed organizers' expectations that this would be a controversial issue, in view of the intense public scrutiny of the rent and eviction law renewal fight last spring.

Effective Advocacy Inside Court

Inside the courts, a friend of the court, or amicus curiae, brief drafted by a team of Legal Services and Legal Aid attorneys was given to every judge. It explained why Met Council and the City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court should be allowed to appear to explain, on behalf of tenants without their own lawyers, why the new law should only apply to cases started on or after Oct. 20, and other critical issues.

At press time, no judge in the city had applied the law retroactively to evict a tenant without giving them a chance to present a request for an "order to show cause" stopping a scheduled eviction. However, in the Bronx, landlords voluntarily discontinued about one-third of the 207 new cases on the calendar that had been started before the law took effect. "We expect they intend to bring new cases and try to evict tenants who cannot make deposits," said Julio Muniz, Bronx coordinator for the Task Force.

Three Strikes and

"The response was every bit as amazing as during Justice Week,' when landlords and their attorneys tried to force rent deposits under the existing statute," noted Judith Goldiner of the Legal Aid Society. In January 1996, the Rent Stabilization Association, the landlords' political arm, had orchestrated what they called "Justice Week" -- a campaign, supported by most of the major landlord law firms, to intimidate judges into denying tenants short adjournments for any reason unless the disputed money was deposited with the court. The effort was a complete failure, as Legal Aid and Legal Services attorneys mobilized to cover every courtroom and present arguments why tenants' rights to prepare their cases should not be restricted.

The Justice Week fiasco followed a similar failure to get the New York City Council to go on record in favor of rent deposit in 1995, and was in turn followed by the dismissal of a landlord lawsuit which sought to get the federal courts to impose mandatory rent deposits. Despite these three failures, landlords persevered, and were rewarded this year when they got Gov. Pataki and the legislature to enact the law.

Equal Time

Throughout the day, RSA spokesmen continued the disinformation campaign which had created the climate for the law's passage, by distorting both the realities of Housing Court and the effect of the new law.

Twice during a brief appearance on Channel 5's "Good Day New York" with Met Council chair Scott Sommer, the RSA's Frank Ricci repeated the outrageous lie that the law will ensure that cases are heard "on the merits. In the real world, the law provides that tenants who are unable to make a required deposit will be evicted with no chance to present any defenses including having actually paid the disputed amount.

RSA President Joe Strasburg was heard all day long on New York 1 repeating the mantra that 99% of New Yorkers will be safe under the law. Ironically, in a narrow sense, this figure is accurate: There are approximately 4 million households in New York City, and 1% of that is 40,000 -- almost exactly the number of additional families who it is estimated will be evicted under the new law, if it is not suspended as unconstitutional by the courts or repealed by the legislature.

The new law has two parts. One, applicable when a case is 30 days old or has been adjourned twice, requires the court to evict tenants by a "default judgment"-- the equivalent of them failing to show up in court to contest the eviction -- unless the tenant deposits rent claimed since the case started.

The other prevents judges from signing "orders to show cause" to stop scheduled evictions -- currently invoked 148,000 times per year -- unless the tenant has all of the disputed amount in hand. Evictions will be mandatory even if the tenant can prove that the disputed amount is an illegal overcharge, was spent to provide heat and hot water due to a delinquent owner, or that the money will be available soon.

Often only a few hundred dollars and a few days separates a family in an affordable apartment from homelessness when the city marshal is on the way. Under these circumstances, judges currently will usually exercise their power to keep people in their homes. The Pataki law, if it is not stopped, will prevent them from even considering such requests, in tens of thousands of cases every year.

"October 20 was a big victory for tenants, and morale is high," observed Doug Seidman of the Legal Aid Society's Housing Court Project, who coordinated coverage of the Manhattan housing parts. "To our knowledge, no one was hurt by judges wrongly applying the law to cases brought before the law's effective date. But once the law starts being applied, the prospect for harm is certain and enormous, and so we must redouble our efforts to stop it."

The New York Times reported on October 22 that there is widespread support in Albany for New York State chief judge Judith Kaye's proposals to modernize the courts. However, as Met Council executive director Jenny Laurie noted, "streamlining Housing Court proceedings without repealing the mandatory eviction law won't help tenants. We must get our allies in Albany to make sure this issue is part of any court-reform plan."