Nearly 1.5 million New Yorkers at risk for eviction when trials begin next month
Eviction cases have been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Housing Court will begin hearing new cases starting on Aug. 20. Nearly 1.5 million New Yorkers are in danger, according to the firm Stout Risius Ross LLC.
That number approached the 2.3 million households-per-year average for the entire nation, according to the Eviction Lab. Across the country, there are nearly 17 million households at risk of eviction, according to Stout.
“This data shows us that all the terms people have been using to describe what’s coming — ‘cliff,’ ‘tsunami,’ ‘avalanche’ and so on — might actually be an understatement,” said John Pollock, coordinator of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel. “The only reason we haven’t already seen two million eviction filings is because of all the CARES Act relief that at this point is either going or gone.”
The total number of households at risk of evictions in New York is 1,496,000, according to Stout, and the estimated shortfall in rent is $2,210,000,000. That’s 46.39 percent of renter households that are at risk of being unable to pay rent. Stout estimates that 1,010,000 evictions will be filed in New York, and nearly 11.5 million across the country, within the next four months.