As part of the 2018 Jerome Avenue rezoning deal, city officials committed $1.5 million in financial assistance for area merchants, intended to help relocate existing businesses that would be displaced. But officials have yet to issue any such grants, a City Limits investigation found.
The law replaces earlier protections that expired Aug. 31 but had been gutted by the Supreme Court ruling last month.
The ruling comes less than two weeks after the Supreme Court ended New York state’s ban on most evictions. But NYC tenants still have several other potential avenues of protection.
‘When you see that line stretch down the block and wrap around the corner, you’ll know things are back to normal,’ one housing advocate said. ‘It’s going to snowball at some point and it’s going to start rolling down the hill.’
The soon-to-be governor recently pledged to re-strengthen the state’s eviction moratorium after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key portion of the law, which expires at the end of this month.
The country’s highest court struck down a key portion of the state’s eviction protections, which allowed tenants to fend off Housing Court proceedings by swearing they had experienced a COVID-related financial hardship.
The State Assembly and Senate passed a bill Monday that would extend the moratorium on most evictions—protections that lapsed May 1—through the end of August. A separate state initiative to distribute federal relief funds to property owners whose tenants owe back-rent is not expected to be up and running until the end of the month.
‘Our state and federal governments have a moral responsibility to go beyond emergency measures and implement systemic, long-term solutions that will direct more public resources to preventing eviction and homelessness.’
The change will suspend a requirement for the Family Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (FHEPS) where applicants had to show proof that their landlord had filed an eviction against them in housing court for rent payments.
A coalition of housing and homeless advocates, along with the city’s top real estate group, are calling for the city and state to expand and improve three key rental assistance programs to aid struggling households at risk for eviction — especially before the state’s eviction moratorium expires in May.
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