Today’s Read: de Blasio Launches $12.3M Plan to Help Tenants Fighting Off Evictions Posted on September 30, 2015 by Jacquelyn Simone The most powerful tool in the fight against homelessness is prevention – saving people from the trauma in the first place. Given how devastating it is to lose one’s home and the exorbitant cost of shelters – $38,000 per year for families – eviction prevention is a solution that is both compassionate and cost-effective, as demonstrated by the Coalition’s own very successful Eviction Prevention Program. The de Blasio administration has recently announced that they are committing additional resources to help people remain stably housed. The unrelenting tide of gentrification in once-affordable neighborhoods has forced more and more New Yorkers from their homes. The percentage of families entering shelter after a formal eviction rose from 17 percent in fiscal year 2002 to 32 percent in fiscal year 2014. Often, landlords will resort to illegal methods and harassment to push out longstanding tenants so they can dramatically increase rent. An estimated 90 percent of tenants appear in housing court without any legal representation, ill-equipped to face the landlords and their attorneys. To help these tenants remain in their homes, the City has launched a new program to connect people facing eviction with lawyers. The attorneys will identify and challenge illegal evictions, as well as help negotiate payment plans for rental arrears and facilitate applications for rental subsidies. Erin Durkin covered the announcement for the Daily News: The city will spend $12.3 million on the new legal services program, bringing total spending to combat eviction and landlord harassment to $60 million, enough to get 113,000 people legal representation. “There are some (landlords) who take advantage of innocent tenants to try and make more money. It’s as simple as that. And there are strong and clear laws against such harassment, against forced evictions, but so many of our tenants who are in these situations don’t have the legal support they need,” de Blasio said. “They’re facing a huge challenge without having the kind of backup they deserve.” City officials estimate that about a third of the people entering homeless shelters show up there after getting evicted from an apartment.
Young, LGBT and Homeless in Age of Broken Windows Posted on September 30, 2015 by Jacquelyn Simone Police officers often harm and harass rather than protect and serve LGBT youth who have traded sex for shelter in New York City, a new study says. The Urban Institute report, “Locked In: Interactions With the Criminal Justice and Child Welfare Systems for LGBTQ Youth, YMSM, and YWSW Who Engage in Survival Sex,” analyzes law enforcement interactions with 283 lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and questioning youth who have engaged in survival sex. (Youths who identify as straight but have reported having had sex with members of the same sex were also included in this sample group of 283.)
City Nearly Doubles Budget for Lawyers Who Help NYers Fight Evictions Posted on September 29, 2015 by Jacquelyn Simone Mayor de Blasio today announced that he will nearly double his spending on legal assistance for tenants facing eviction, with an emphasis on New Yorkers living in the city’s 15 most rapidly-gentrifying neighborhoods—Crown Heights, Bushwick, and Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn; Jamaica in Queens; and Tremont in the Bronx, among others. The city’s anti-eviction legal team, which currently receives $13.5 million annually and has the capacity to deal with 10,000 cases per year, will receive an additional $12.3 million to accommodate 19,000 cases annually by Fiscal Year 2017.
