Dear Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins and Speaker Heastie,

With more than 270,000 eviction cases pending across the state, New York tenants need Right to Counsel! While many tenants in NYC have the Right to Counsel when facing eviction, the law currently does not cover everyone, and does not cover all the types of cases that could result in displacement. NYC’s Right to Counsel law is also under threat from a state court system that has so far been unwilling to uphold NYC tenants’ RTC–but our state law can fix this problem! Finally, tenants throughout the rest of the state do not have the Right to Counsel at all. In Albany, for example, in 2022’s third quarter, only 1.3% of tenants were represented in Albany civil court while 91.8% of landlords had attorneys. That is unacceptable!

New York State’s eviction crisis will only get worse if we don’t enact permanent solutions that strengthen tenants’ rights and empower tenants to fight for their homes – Passing statewide Right to Counsel would do just that. Right to Counsel is proven to stop evictions – 84 percent of tenants in New York City who had a Right to Counsel lawyer won their case and the seven cities that passed Right to

New York State’s eviction crisis will only get worse if we don’t enact permanent solutions that strengthen tenants’ rights and empower tenants to fight for their homes – Passing statewide Right to Counsel would do just that. Right to Counsel is proven to stop evictions – 84 percent of tenants in New York City who had a Right to Counsel lawyer won their case and the seven cities that passed Right to