Proposed Legislation Amending New York Lien Law Section 182: Shavon’s Law

SUMMARY

Shavon’s Law is proposed legislation in New York State that would amend Lien Law Section 182 to prohibit self-storage facilities from auctioning the belongings of homeless New Yorkers while they have a pending application, payment, or appeal with their local social services department for storage fee assistance. The City Bar’s Social Welfare Law Committee proposed the law after clients of the City Bar Justice Center — including Nina Davila, who lost the ashes of her son Shavon in a storage auction caused by an HRA processing error — suffered catastrophic, irreversible losses through no fault of their own. The bill is named in memory of Shavon Davila.

For background on the City Bar’s advocacy campaign and bill status, visit the Shavon’s Law Advocacy Campaign page.

UPDATE: This bill has been introduced as S.9870 – April 9, 2026

2026 NYS Legislative Agenda Item

WHAT SHAVON’S LAW WOULD DO

The proposed amendments to New York Lien Law Section 182 would establish a clear, balanced framework to protect homeless New Yorkers’ belongings while social services departments process their applications for storage fee assistance. Specifically, the bill would:

• Where payment has been made by a social services department under an occupancy agreement, require self-storage facilities to send the requisite auction notice to the social services department, an important step should automated payments be enabled and/or a person experiencing a housing crisis not receive a notice of auction.
• Require the social services department to certify within 10 days of receipt of an auction notice whether a storage assistance payment, application, or fair hearing request is pending.
• Require a social services department to bear the cost of any delay in providing such written certification.
• Prohibit auction of items where (1) the social services department fails to certify the status of a storage assistance payment, application, or fair hearing request or (2) a social services district certifies, or an occupant provides evidence of, a pending social services department storage assistance payment, decision, or fair hearing.
• Permit an occupant to, if necessary, request a stay of auction to enforce this prohibition, without requiring that they establish irreparable harm, a standard and burdensome showing required for injunctions under New York law.
• Award attorney’s fees and costs if a stay request is necessary to obtain compliance.

These provisions ensure that lien enforcement is paused only in limited circumstances and only for the duration of the pending determination or appeal.

ADVOCACY & RESOURCES

Learn more about the City Bar’s ongoing advocacy and how to support Shavon’s Law at our Shavon’s Law campaign hub.

REPORT

REPORT BY THE SOCIAL WELFARE COMMITTEE

PROPOSED LEGISLATION AMENDING NEW YORK LIEN LAW SECTION 182: SHAVON’S LAW

I. SUMMARY

The Social Welfare Committee (the Committee) of the New York City Bar Association (the City Bar) proposes amending New York Lien Law Section 182, which governs self-storage facilities. Through the proposed legislation, Shavon’s Law, New Yorkers experiencing homelessness who have applied for self-storage fee assistance from their social services department will not have their belongings auctioned off while they await or challenge the social services department’s payment or decision.

II. INTRODUCTION

New York Lien Law Section 182 currently provides for prompt auction of items in self-storage facilities, should the occupant default on payment and the storage facility owner provide 30 days’ notice. When bureaucratic delay or error – beyond any individual applicant’s ability to control – meets with the current New York Lien Law Section 182 provisos, homeless individuals suffer the disastrous consequence of losing all their items to auction before they can challenge such agency delay or error in processing their assistance applications. Shavon’s Law would prohibit enforcement of a lien where the occupant has a pending social services department storage fee assistance request or appeal. A copy of the Committee’s proposed amendments is attached to this report (see Appendix A).

III. LIEN LAW 182 AND HOMELESSNESS

In New York, eligible individuals and families living in shelters, on the street, or doubled-up in the community (i.e., temporarily living in another person’s home), are entitled to emergency assistance grants from their local department of social services to pay for the temporary storage of their belongings. More specifically, each social services department “must” provide a monetary grant for storage of personal and household items “when it is necessary for circumstances such as relocation, eviction or temporary shelter, so long as eligibility for public assistance continues and so long as the circumstances necessitating the storage continue to exist, and no other storage options exist.”[1]

Upon approval of a storage assistance application, the social services department pays the applicant’s self-storage facility directly. Under New York Lien Law Section 182, the owner of the self-storage facility has “a lien upon all personal property stored at a self-storage facility for occupancy fees or other charges.”[2] If the occupant fails to pay storage fees, the owner may enforce the lien by auctioning off the contents of the storage unit, as long as the owner provides 30-days’ notice of the auction indicating, among other things, the occupant’s right to file a special proceeding to challenge either “the validity of the lien” or “the amount” of the arrears or value of the owner’s services.[3] In the vast majority of cases, individuals waiting for a public assistance grant lack any basis to challenge the validity of the lien per se, amount of arrears, or value of the owner’s services.

In New York City, applicants are required each month to present a monthly application and / or storage bill to their benefits center, notwithstanding an existing policy of the New York City Human Resources Administration (“HRA”) that provides for an automated payment system for residents of Department of Homeless Services shelters. As a result, and as described in detail below, people in housing crises essentially roll the dice – every month – on whether their application will be granted in sufficient time to prevent mounting arrears and lien enforcement auction that risks all their worldly possessions. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that not every storage facility complies with the existing notice requirements of New York Lien Law Section 182 and individuals experiencing homelessness may lack consistent access to their mail.

Social services departments have existing directives and laws aimed at preventing agency delays and errors. For example, when necessary to meet an urgent need, the social services department must make same-day decisions and/or provide immediate relief while determining whether an emergency need exists.[4] More specifically, HRA requires decisions on emergency storage fee assistance requests be made within the time “necessary to abate an emergency (such as preventing an auction sale or allowing access to urgently needed items in storage).”[5]However, enforcing these laws on a case-by-case basis – and repeatedly – is an excessive burden on the administrative system and is too much to ask any individual, let alone someone navigating a shelter crisis for themselves and their families. Similarly, while there are procedures to request emergency appeals of their application status, applicants are routinely kept in the dark as to the status of their application or told they simply must wait and cannot do anything to speed up the process, depriving them of any opportunity to force the agency to comply with existing laws.

IV. WHY AMENDMENTS ARE NECESSARY

Despite diligently complying with the application and eligibility rules referenced above, applicants for storage assistance are commonly met with bureaucratic delays and errors. In this context, even relatively short delays result in the loss of one’s belongings to New York Lien Law Section 182 auction, depriving homeless individuals of their personal property as well as any meaningful opportunity to challenge the erroneous denial of the public assistance benefit.

Below are the stories of several of the City Bar Justice Center’s[6] clients. They chronicle the chaos and anxiety in the lives of homeless individuals and families caused by administrative delay and a flawed Lien Law 182, as well as the resulting trauma of losing all of one’s belongings, through no fault of their own. This loss not only deepens each person’s housing crisis, it robs them of objects imbued with their family history, symbolizing their individual achievements, necessary for their livelihoods, and in one tragic case, the ashes of a mother’s beloved son.

a. Nina Davila

Nina Davila, a former professor who built a life for herself after growing up in foster care, found herself, after a COVID-related employment reduction and the onset of a nervous system disorder, without stable housing or income in 2023. Without a secure home to hold her belongings, Ms. Davila rented a small storage unit and filled it with her most important possessions, including artwork, music, books, and most importantly, two urns. One contained the ashes of her treasured pets, and the other contained the ashes of her beloved son, Shavon Davila. During this time of housing instability, Ms. Davila believed the storage unit to be the most secure place to safeguard her belongings.

For over a year, Ms. Davila complied with HRA’s requirements for obtaining storage fee assistance for her storage unit and HRA paid the invoices, albeit sometimes late. On April 25, 2024, Ms. Davila requested storage fee assistance and presented her invoice in the same manner as usual. When Ms. Davila did not receive confirmation that her bill was paid, she presented a second copy of her invoice, which she had requested from a local office of her storage facility, to HRA on May 15, 2024.

HRA did not provide Ms. Davila with notice that her application was denied until May 30, 2024. However, unbeknownst to Ms. Davila, on May 23, 2024, the self-storage facility had auctioned off her unit, and her items were cleared out on May 24, 2024. The reason belatedly given for HRA’s denial was that Ms. Davila’s residence could not be verified. However, HRA’s files show that not only was there a letter verifying her residence, but there had been a separate investigation into this very issue which found that she was eligible. Ms. Davila pleaded with the storage facility to provide the name of the buyer of her items. But it was too late. He had already disposed of the urn with her son’s ashes.

Beyond the loss of tens of thousands of dollars in personal property that symbolized who she is and what she had overcome, Ms. Davila is distraught first and foremost over the loss of the ashes of her stillborn son, Shavon Davila. Ms. Davila had planned to one day be buried along with her son’s ashes, and this experience has caused her to relive the trauma of losing her son repeatedly. She wants no one else to suffer this type of preventable, excruciating loss. For this reason, the City Bar proposes that the new amendments to Lien Law 182 be named “Shavon’s Law” after this beloved family member, Shavon Davila.

b. Yolanda Castillo (alias)

In or around 2023, Ms. Castillo, who is a licensed cosmetologist and voice-over artist, lived with her then one-year-old daughter and 21-year-old college-attending daughter. Due to lack of space at an extended family member’s home and economic difficulties from a then-undiagnosed case of fibromyalgia, Ms. Castillo and her baby entered the shelter system. Her adult daughter was told she was too old to join them in the shelter. Ms. Castillo placed all of the family’s belongings in storage: her daughter’s college books and materials, sentimental children’s items from both girls, several beds, a TV, other furniture, along with the tools she had bought to practice her cosmetology trade.

Ms. Castillo requested storage payments from HRA. On July 10, 2023, she filed an emergency needs application noting that her items in storage were set to be auctioned on August 7, 2023. She called HRA and explained the situation, but the representative was “sleepy,” disinterested, and told her she could not do anything for her, she just had to wait. Despite pain from her medical condition, she walked into her benefits center but the HRA representative simply, and erroneously, sent her to another center allegedly to present employment verification. Despite HRA policy that requires timely action to abate an auction, HRA did not approve her request until August 7, 2023.

Unfortunately, Ms. Castillo’s belongings were auctioned off that day. Upon hearing the news, Ms. Castillo broke down in tears. Despite trying so hard to get HRA to pay attention, she and her daughter had lost everything and had to “start over from zero.” Ms. Castillo filed for compensation from HRA for her lost belongings, but the Administrative Law Judge told her that the fair hearing process could not provide such relief. These facts demonstrate that without some change to Lien Law 182 or providing each applicant with a magic wand to eliminate bureaucratic delay and malfeasance, homeless individuals are squeezed between the two, with no meaningful opportunity to protect their property rights or obtain post facto compensation.

c. Venus Weisman

A former dental assistant who was laid off during COVID, Ms. Weisman entered a women’s shelter after using up all her savings, working side gigs, and rooming with others in an apartment plagued with mold, leaks, and flooding. When Ms. Weisman learned that HRA could help pay for her belongings in storage, she began the monthly process of applying. Every month, she submitted her bills early, called HRA to remind them to pay, and walked into her benefits center to ensure that her storage bills were being paid. Despite her careful attention, HRA repeatedly failed to issue timely payments, resulting in late fees and tremendous stress.

By November and December of 2024, Ms. Weisman began receiving bills noting that her storage unit was at risk of auction. She repeatedly submitted payment requests to HRA indicating the urgent risk of auction. Although HRA eventually approved her requests on December 24, 2025, HRA never submitted the payments to the storage facility. On January 23, 2025, Ms. Weisman received a voicemail from the self-storage facility that her items would be auctioned unless she made payment within one hour. She never received a written notice of auction. Nonetheless, all of her items were auctioned off. The storage facility even charged her for the next month.

The contents of her storage unit were deeply personal, irreplaceable, and encompassed nearly her entire life. It held childhood photos, including the only remaining photos of her biological family and the only baby and childhood photos she had as an adoptee. It contained high school yearbooks, letters, birthday cards from her late adoptive parents and biological father, a portrait canvas of her biological father, albums of her nephews, acting certificates, her humanitarian award, signatures from classmates, clippings from articles and pageants documenting her accomplishments. These items represented relationships, experiences, and parts of her identity that can never be replaced. The grief she experienced mirrored the pain of losing a loved one, as these belongings were her last tangible connections to the people she had lost and to the history she could never recreate.

After losing virtually everything she owned including furniture, kitchen equipment, summer and winter clothing, when Ms. Weisman eventually left the shelter, she had to move into an empty apartment with only a few clothes and an airbed, facing the overwhelming challenge of rebuilding her life from scratch. With no family to turn to, Ms. Weisman felt as if everything came crashing down on her while she was completely alone.

Without a mechanism to protect belongings while HRA processes applications for storage assistance, countless other homeless New Yorkers like Ms. Weisman will continue to face catastrophic and irreparable loss, deepening their sense of isolation, trauma, and financial hardship.

d. Jorge Ibarra

Jorge Ibarra, a former IT professional and business manager, turned to HRA for assistance with paying for a storage unit after the pandemic gutted his business and his Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy made it medically unsafe to reside in his four-story walk-up apartment.  Mr. Ibarra complied with HRA requirements for emergency grant applications and filed up to three Fair Hearings when HRA did not timely pay his storage fees. While he was waiting for a final Fair Hearing decision regarding the storage fee payments, Mr. Ibarra filed for a temporary restraining order to enjoin the auction in Superior Court of New Jersey, where Mr. Ibarra had chosen to store his belongings due to cheaper rates. Although the unit contained important documents, clothing, and items related to his medical care, as well as items associated with his work, family, and personal history, the Superior Court judge was reluctant to grant the injunction because it was not clear that loss of such property was irreparable. After all, loss of personal property is generally considered compensable by monetary damages.

Mr. Ibarra eventually convinced the judge that the medical equipment was necessary for his health, and the court granted a short injunction. During that time, Mr. Ibarra scrambled and sought free legal help advocating with HRA, which resulted in the issuance of the checks on the day the injunction was set to expire.  Mr. Ibarra was lucky: he had the ability to draft legal paperwork, argue his case, as well as the time and means to travel and submit an emergency filing in court. It is simply not feasible for most individuals experiencing homelessness to do this. Shavon’s Law would ensure that a meaningful opportunity to be heard regarding the deprivation of all of one’s personal property, as well as a statutory welfare entitlement, is afforded to all homeless New Yorkers.

V. BALANCING THE EQUITIES

The proposed amendments to Section 182 of the Lien Law balance the unfair burden on homeless individuals, enormous financial benefits that self-storage facilities reap from public assistance storage payments, and the common denominator of social services department delay. As noted above, homeless individuals do not store excess belongings in self-storage facilities, but often their only and most essential belongings. Their heightened property interest in their stored belongings coupled with the high risk of untimely payments or erroneous denials by social services departments create an environment where erroneous deprivations of due process and personal property rights are all too common, nearly impossible to fully remedy, and potentially unconstitutional.

Furthermore, self-storage facilities benefit financially when eligible New Yorkers experiencing homelessness obtain monthly storage fee public assistance grants for self-storage services. The New York City Department of Social Services reports the total annual amount HRA paid directly to self-storage facilities for each year from 2022-2024 as follows[7]:

HRA Storage Facility Payments

Since individuals in housing crises would not otherwise be able to afford these fees, self-storage facilities benefit, to the tune of millions of dollars, from this additional, government-subsidized stream of income.

Finally, if and when there are delays due to the fair hearing process, there is a substantial likelihood that HRA will, post-fair hearing, ultimately pay the storage facility all fees due and owing. Studies have shown that the vast majority of HRA decisions subject to fair hearings are decided in favor of the applicant.[8] Furthermore, legal and social service organizations in New York City are lobbying Mayor Mamdani to implement aid-continuing for storage assistance payments. This would require HRA to provide ongoing storage assistance payments after an initial denial, if the public assistance applicant files a fair hearing request and a request for aid-continuing within 10 days of the denial.

The relatively minor financial burden placed on storage facilities to wait for the relevant social services department to act pales in comparison to the dual burdens that currently fall on homeless New Yorkers: the strain of repeatedly fighting bureaucratic delay and error and the risk of losing all of one’s property.  Further, by incentivizing bureaucratic efficiency, an amended lien law will reduce the financial risks or losses that self-storage facilities bear in situations where storage assistance payments are delayed or erroneously denied. In recognition of these unnecessary risks and unfair burdens, Shavon’s Law provides a balanced and limited safe haven for homeless New Yorkers to securely store their belongings.

VI. SHAVON’S LAW: PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO LIEN LAW SECTION 182

The proposed amendments to the New York Lien Law Section 182 will:

• Where payment has been made by a social services department under an occupancy agreement, require self-storage facilities to send the requisite auction notice to the social services department, an important step should automated payments be enabled and/or a person experiencing a housing crisis not receive a notice of auction.
• Require the social services department to certify within 10 days of receipt of an auction notice whether a storage assistance payment, application, or fair hearing request is pending.
• Require a social services department to bear the cost of any delay in providing such written certification.
• Prohibit auction of items where (1) the social services department fails to certify the status of a storage assistance payment, application, or fair hearing request or (2) a social services district certifies, or an occupant provides evidence of, a pending social services department storage assistance payment, decision, or fair hearing.
• Permit an occupant to, if necessary, request a stay of auction to enforce this prohibition, without requiring that they establish irreparable harm, a standard and burdensome showing required for injunctions under New York law.
• Award attorney’s fees and costs if a stay request is necessary to obtain compliance.

A copy of the Committee’s proposed amendments to New York Lien Law Section 182 is attached to this report (see Appendix A).

VII. CONCLUSION

The City Bar urges the legislature to enact Shavon’s Law to protect homeless individuals from the deprivation of their due process rights and property rights. The proposed law will (a) incentivize bureaucratic efficiency, (b) in the vast majority of circumstances, impose only a minimal, temporary financial burden on self-storage facilities that earn millions of dollars each year from public assistance storage payments, and (c) enable individuals experiencing housing instability to protect precious, essential belongings, fulfilling the spirit and intent of the relevant New York statutes and regulations. With the approval of Shavon’s Law, the legislature will ensure that New Yorkers in housing crises can focus on finding a home, rather than engaging in the Sisyphean task of fighting bureaucratic delay on the one hand and a merciless lien law on the other.

Social Welfare Law Committee*
Catherine Frizell, Chair
Amelia Toledo, Member

January 2026

*The Committee thanks the City Bar Justice Center clients for sharing their stories and Professor Stephen Loffredo and pro bono volunteer Alex Leonard for their contributions to the proposed amendments.