City Will Guarantee Legal Counsel To Low-Income Tenants In Housing Court (Gothamist)
Gothamist, February 12, 2017
City Will Guarantee Legal Counsel To Low-Income Tenants In Housing Court
“A new legislative initiative launched Sunday afternoon will guarantee legal representation for low-income tenants in Housing Court, a major development in housing policy in a city where roughly 90 percent of tenants currently appear in court without an attorney….The announcement comes several months after Council Member Mark Levine and Council Member Vanessa Gibson introduced right-to-counsel legislation, which proposed providing representation to tenants with incomes under 200 percent of the federal poverty line. The policy announced today uses the same means test, which works out to 50,000 a year for a family of four. A study released last spring by the New York City Bar Association found that such a requirement would cover around 80 percent of all cases in housing court—approximately 130,000 cases a year.”
