State Budget Preserves Anti-Eviction Programs
$6.1 Million Approved for Legal Services;
Jiggetts Welfare-Rent Supplements Extended
by Kenny Schaeffer

The state budget finally passed by the legislature and signed by Governor George Pataki last July reflects two important victories for low-income tenants: State funding for civil legal-service programs—deleted entirely in 1998 by Pataki—was restored in the amount of $6.1 million, including $3.1 million for New York City, and the state’s program of providing supplemental rent payments to families on public assistance who are facing eviction survived the governor’s attempt to kill it.

Steve Banks, assistant attorney in charge of the Legal Aid Society’s civil division, hailed the renewed funding, but pointed out that it is less than the $6.8 million that the Governor vetoed last year and thus only partially restores an inadequate status quo. “The overwhelming majority of low-income families still cannot obtain legal representation when facing the threat of eviction, hazardous conditions or other housing emergency, denial of public benefits to which they are entitled and desperately need, or in other civil matters,” Banks pointed out.

Still, the budget appropriation is welcome news because it assures most legal services programs that they will be able to continue at current staffing levels—which was not at all certain earlier this year. Several programs are facing difficulty because the Giuliani administration is holding back payments for work done under contracts and programs approved by the City Council. Additionally, the federal government has cut legal services funding nationwide, and barred legal-service providers receiving federal money from filing class-action lawsuits or bringing suits against any branch of the government—conditions which have led many legal-service providers, such as the Legal Aid Society, to refuse this funding. Income from another source, interest on lawyers’ accounts earmarked for legal services for the poor, has dropped by more than half, due to declining interest rates.

The Assembly was also able to defeat an attempt by Governor Pataki to eliminate “Jiggetts” rent supplements, money paid to families on public assistance above the standard shelter allowance when they are unable to find housing or facing eviction for nonpayment of rent. Pataki had sought to amend the state Social Service Law to eliminate the requirement that the state protect indigent children, the legal basis for the state Court of Appeals 1990 decision in the Jiggetts v. Grinker lawsuit. In that case, the state’s highest court ruled that because of that requirement, families on welfare receiving a shelter allowance must get enough to find adequate housing.

Current shelter allowances range from $215 a month for a single person to $312 a month for a family of four—pitifully inadequate in today’s market. People receiving supplements under the Jiggetts decision get from $450 a month for a single person to $700 for a family of four. At a cost of several million dollars per year, these payments keep almost 30,000 families from being evicted, and prevent the loss of affordable housing stock that would occur if these people were displaced.

The Jiggetts case also survived a judicial challenge by the Pataki administration, when the state appealed a state Supreme Court judge’s determination that the basic shelter allowance is inadequate. After a number of groups, including Met Council, sought permission last winter to be included as friends of the court, the Supreme Court’s Appellate Division affirmed the Jiggetts order in May.