City Will Spend $12M to Provide Lawyers for Tenants Facing Eviction
(DNAINFO) Jeff Mays — Mayor Bill de Blasio said the plan aims to “stop homelessness before it starts.”
The city is spending $12 million to expand its anti-eviction programs to provide free legal representation to tenants faced with the prospect of losing their homes, city officials announced Monday.
The initiative is an effort to “stop homelessness before it starts” by protecting families from “unscrupulous landlords” and keeping them in their rent-regulated apartments, said Mayor Bill de Blasio during a press conference at City Hall.
“When we lose a unit of affordable housing, in too many cases, that’s forever. It’s never coming back,” the mayor said.
The effort is in line with another city push to protect tenants from being displaced by profit-seeking landlords in areas that are being rezoned.
This new effort will focus on city neighborhoods where most of the shelter population is coming from, said Human Resources Administration Commissioner Steven Banks.