Right to Counsel Rally Tuesday

The New York State Council of Churches is working with other religious groups and housing advocates to organize a rally in Albany tomorrow (Tuesday) to promote Right to Counsel legislation, which would ensure that every tenant in New York State has the right to a lawyer when facing an eviction.

According to an email from the council, “Our faith leads us to proclaim the dignity of all people and the right to shelter. We agree with Pope Francis, who said during his 2015 visit to the United States, ‘We can find no social or moral justification, no justification whatsoever, for lack of housing.’”
 
The Council reports that 1.2 million households are behind on rent due to the COVID-19 pandemic and more than 237,000 eviction cases pending across the state.

Advocates are gathering at the staircase outside the Legislative Office Building (172 State Street) for a rally at 11:00 a.m., after which they will enter the building and go through security. Once inside, they will have a press conference with clergy at noon in the War Room on the second floor of the Capitol building. Following the press conference, groups will either go to lobby meetings and/or do a direct action targeting specific legislators. 

In a letter to Governor Kathy Hochul, advocates wrote:

While we are encouraged by your recent recognition of the success of NYC’s Right to Counsel law in your 2022 State of the State and your proposed program to provide funding for free legal assistance to upstate renters facing eviction with incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, it does not go far enough to protect tenants. It does not establish the universal Right to Counsel ​​that tenants across New York State need, nor does it help downstate tenants in NYC and the surrounding areas. In contrast, A7570 / S6678 establishes the right to free legal representation for every tenant in court cases where their basic human right to a home is at risk. Passing A7570 / S6678 and immediately signing it into law is the only real way to address our state's long standing eviction crisis.

New York State’s eviction crisis will only get worse if we don’t enact permanent solutions that strengthen tenants’ rights and empower tenants to fight for their homes – Passing statewide Right to Counsel would do just that. As you noted in your State of the State, Right to Counsel is proven to stop evictions – 84 percent of tenants in New York City who had a Right to Counsel lawyer won their case and the seven cities that now have Right to Counsel have seen up to a 77 percent reduction in evictions. Last year, Washington State, Maryland, and Connecticut also passed Right to Counsel statewide. Here in New York, the majority of cases are initiated by landlords and nearly all landlords have lawyers in eviction cases, while most tenants do not. This creates a power imbalance in the courts that favors landlords, many of whom consider evictions essential to their business models: Landlords evict tenants because they have power, and because it increases their profits, not because the law supports them. Right to Counsel disrupts this business model by regulating the eviction process, changing the amount of power landlords have over tenants, and helping to stop evictions and displacement. We also know that keeping people in their homes is vastly less expensive than the state having to pick up care for people who become homeless.