The Eviction Moratorium: A View from the LES

On May 1, the state’s moratorium on evictions ended and Elyse Highstreet, senior rent regulated housing organizer at Good Old Lower Side (GOLES), believes new protections will be voted into place, extending the moratorium to August 31.

“We’ve been pushing to try and cancel rents for over a year now,” Highstreet said of GOLES. “Eviction moratoriums are great, but they always have weaknesses and at the end of the day, if people’s rents aren’t forgiven, then an eviction moratorium just delays the inevitable.”

When this new protection on evictions is voted into place, Highstreet said some people may fall through the cracks; people with warrants for eviction that have been served by a marshal’s notice “in those few hours” on Monday morning.

Tenants behind on rent and in need can fill out a “Hardship Declaration” from Eviction Free NY, to protect themselves from eviction. On their site, it describes this law as on the responsibility “on the tenants.”

“We really just cannot lean on these eviction protections. You really need to provide relief for folks who are unable to pay their rent,” she said. “And we shouldn’t have to fight for eviction moratoriums, you know, we shouldn’t be fighting for them. They shouldn’t have lapsed the few times that they have in the last year. We shouldn’t allow evictions to continue at the rate that they do and that some change that really needs to happen.”

In the event that tenants are litigated by landlords, a recent bill, sponsored by Council Members Mark Levine and Vanessa Gibson, would ensure tenants a “right to counsel.” The bill was passed with a 43-3-1 vote on April 29.

NYS Homes and Community Renewal (HCR)’s COVID Rent Relief Program has received over 83,000 online applications, 11,000 paper applications, and denied over 57,000. The HCR has made payments to over 15,000 applicants for a total of nearly $40 million as of October 2020.

Highstreet believes the housing industry is viewed as a business. “There are certain people who use housing to profit and to make a living. And there are other people who, for them, housing is shelter, and its healthcare,” she said. “So I think it’s really important for people to understand that there are large corporations in housing that make tons and tons of money and they really do have the ability to take this burden of owed rent during COVID.”

She also said that the way forward is for the industry to shift its mindset on housing. “I really believe that our whole housing system just needs to change,” she said. “We need to view it as healthcare and not as a business. I really think that’s what it needs to be at the end of the day. I think that is a very long-term goal.”