Is now the right time to end the eviction moratorium?

New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the state’s eviction moratorium is ending on Jan. 15, allowing landlords to file eviction cases against tenants again. Unlike previous times where the moratorium was extended to assist tenants behind on rent, there is no extension this time.

Photo acquired from flickr.com, courtesy of Governor Kathy Hochul.

It is now almost one month since the moratorium ended, and while the state of the New York economy has greatly improved since the initial lockdown in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the question now is if the moratorium should have stayed in place?

Currently, according to the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition, there are currently more than 220,000 eviction cases waiting to be heard in court across New York State. This number only includes cases filed in cities, and not towns and villages, only indicating that the number of eviction cases and people at risk are much higher than anticipated.

Landlords have been asking for the moratorium to end for some time now, because the lack of funds coming in from tenants also poses them at risk for foreclosure.

Norfe Pirro, who spoke with the Ithaca Journal, stated that landlords are always seen as the bad guy, but they too have concerns over their financial wellbeing. Pirro explained how he relies on the tenant’s rent for bills and other payments, like putting his daughter through college.

As for tenants, however, there are many things that comes to mind, making one think twice about whether the expiration of the eviction moratorium was the best move for New York.

First, considering how the COVID-19 pandemic affected everyone in the country, especially New York, the guidance being provided by the attorney general, Letitia James, is being ignored. On Jan. 21, James released several points of advice for tenants, one being that they can prevent being evicted if they had “suffered financial loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic” from early March of 2020 up until Jan. 15 when the moratorium expired. However, even with this in mind, eviction cases in New York City have increased from almost 140,000 cases right before the pandemic to now over 180,000 cases.

"Affordable Housing Protest Rally" by Mark Klotz is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Second, New York continues to experience a high level of unemployment compared to the rest of the country. The state currently has an unemployment rate of 6.2 percent. And while that is a drastic improvement since April 2020 when the rate was at 16.2 percent, New York still ranks 48 out of the US, with only New Jersey, Nevada, and California at the bottom. Even now, there are still people who have no job to pay rent.

And third, those who are more at risk of being evicted and even unique, individual cases adds to the discussion of discrimination and human rights issues. In Ithaca, an expectant mother and a family whose home was condemned after a fire were recently evicted on Feb. 3. Throughout the country, those who are more likely to rent are people of color, with African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians making up 45.4 percent of renters in the United States, whereas the same groups of people only make up 23.1 percent of owners. Looking at these cases and demographics only raises the question of just how ethical evictions are and whether they contribute to long term discrimination in the housing market.

Looking at a statewide issue through a more local lens, Ithaca is not prepared for the slowly increasing wave of evictions that will occur throughout the next coming weeks. With tenants and landlords butting heads over what legislation is right for the community, and with students from both Ithaca College and Cornell University fighting for housing against residents, availability is at an extreme low, with affordable housing being even lower.

The hope is that rental assistance programs and agreements between tenants and landlords can be made, but who is to say that the future will hold promising achievements in housing for all.