NYC NOW - August 11, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

A state judge in Ulster County will decide today whether to keep blocking new legal cannabis shops from opening in New York. Also, Adam's administration officials won't guarantee new shelter space for asylum-seekers who reach the end of a new 60 limit on stays in city shelters. Finally, since New York ended its eviction pause in January 2022, landlords in New York City have evicted 10,000 families and individuals. WNYC and Gothamist launched an eviction tracker, mapping these incidents across the five boroughs and revealing disparities among neighborhoods. WNYC’s David Brand and Neil Mehta offer insights on this issue.

NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, August 11. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. A state judge in Ulster County will decide today whether to keep blocking new legal cannabis shops from opening in New York. The ruling could affect hundreds of New Yorkers who've already received dispensary licenses and poor time and money. and to opening their businesses. Jeremy Rivera has intervened in the case.

He was planning to open his shopping queens within the next few days. He says he cried when he heard about the temporary block earlier this week. I kind of felt hopeless. You know, I felt like for the first time in this program like I didn't know what to do. All current dispensary owners were licensed under a state program, prioritizing people with marijuana convictions and their family members. Disabled veterans filed a lawsuit being heard today. they don't qualify for that program and argue it's unconstitutional.

Adams administration officials say they won't guarantee new shelter space for asylum seekers who reach the end of a new 60-day limit on stays in city shelters. Emergency management head, Zach Iskell, told city council members the new policy only applies to single adults and aims to free up shelter space for migrant families. Iskell says migrants can reapply for shelter, but with no guarantee of getting a bed, they could wind up on the street. Would you rather have somebody on the streets who has been here for two hours? Would you rather give somebody 60 days, help them get on their feet and open up a bed for that person?

The city's working open to new shelters but says it needs more help from the state and federal governments. 79 and mostly sunny right now, sunny in 86 for a high today. Tomorrow, slight chances of showers and thunderstorms, mostly sunny in 86. Sunday's slightly warmer, mostly sunny in 88. Right now, once again, 79 and mostly sunny. I'm Sean Carlson for WNYC. When the COVID pandemic hit New York, the state put a stop to evictions, as thousands of people were left without jobs and struggled to make ends meet.

But that pause ended in January of last year, and since then, landlords have evicted 10,000 families and individuals. While that is much lower than pre-pandemic days, the number of evictions in New York City are clearly steadily on the rise, and those evictions aren't hitting neighborhoods at the same rate. So to better understand what is driving evictions and how they're affecting New Yorkers, W&MICC and Gotham has launched an eviction tracker that maps every eviction in the five boroughs. Joining us are WMIC's David Brand and Neil Meta,

who have been working on the project for the last several weeks. Hello, D. Bo. Hey, David, let's start with you. What are you hoping this project uncovers? Evictions take a heavy toll on individuals and families, and they have a serious impact on communities, too. they're taking away longtime residents, shredding social networks. So each one reflects a specific household's unique experience, but taken as a whole,

the mounting number of cases highlights some serious systemic problems. Unemployment, impact of unpaid rent and the effect on housing, strained social services and dwindling options for thousands of New Yorkers who are at risk of losing their homes. So whatever those circumstances are, maybe people owe a lot of back rent, or maybe it's a small amount or the landlord just wants to get them out, 10,000 evictions is going to have a huge systemic impact on New York City, especially when we're already struggling to house 100,000 people in shelters, and hundreds of thousands of others are on the brink of homelessness. So, you know, we just want to identify trends and create a resource here for others to use to see what's going

on in their communities. And I also hope it can be used by policymakers who are considering where and how to target resources, intervention, and relief for tenants and landlords. Neil, you parsed through thousands of lines of data to contextualize what this all means, and you distilled it down into graphics so readers can better understand what's happening in their backyard. Can you tell us about some of the key takeaways you found? Yeah, for sure. So the data itself says two main things. The first is that evictions are concentrated in select areas of the city, like in central Brooklyn,

central and south Bronx, and northern Staten Island. And the second is that evictions are ramping up really quickly. So after COVID-19 hit the city, it put a freeze on all evictions. But once that freeze expired in January of 2022, evictions came back fast. For example, in July of last year, there were 335 evictions. But this July, there were over 1,100. So while the numbers are helping us pinpoint the regions while tenants are facing issues, it's just the start of our reporting.

And what David and I really want to do is focus on the people behind these issues. evictions and what sorts of systems are causing the evictions to take place? And how does it affect residents down the line? So to that end, are there any hotspots where evictions are happening? And do we know what may be driving that? Yeah, we notice a few trends. Evictions are happening at the highest rates throughout much of the Bronx, central Brooklyn, northern Staten Island. And these are areas that tend to have more black and Latino renters and where median incomes are well below the citywide average. You know, we can drill down further thanks to the great maps that Neil put together,

which focus on census tracks, which are just collections of a few blocks. And we could see that the highest number and highest rates evictions are often in large housing complexes. So, for example, we looked at Flatbush Gardens, and that's a group of 58 buildings with about 2,500 apartments. And we found that the private equity firm that owns the complex evicted 50 households since the start of 2020. and that's among the highest in the city and the highest rate in Brooklyn. But I think what really shows the extent of unpaid rent and the landlord's strategy of going to housing court early to compel repayment there is that one third of households in that housing complex have received an eviction notice over the past 19 months. That's a lot of people.

Yeah. Wow. If New Yorkers are facing eviction, what resources do they have available? Is there anything they can do? So David and I spoke to attorneys and tenant advocates about what, do if you're in that sort of situation, they gave us three main pieces of advice. The first is that if you're being called into court for an eviction case, it isn't certain that you're losing your home. It's just a start of a legal process where you can respond, you can challenge the eviction,

you can raise issues with repairs and conditions, you can reach a settlement or you could apply for relief. And the second is that you should always show up to your court dates. If not, you can have a default judgment issued against you because you didn't show up. And And then you can potentially lose your apartment that way. You know, everyone in New York City has the right to some kind of legal assistance. Low-income renters can access full representation for free from the city's right-to-council program, too. So if you're facing eviction, you should call 311 or a tenant's rights hotline. They can point you in the right direction and offer guidance that's more tailored to your individual situation.

Two of them are the Housing Court Answers hotline and the Met Council on Housing Hotline. The third thing is that you should document everything that you can. So anything your landlord tells you, you should try to get in writing or write down. And then once you're in court, you shouldn't leave until you know what the next steps are. So maybe you need to adhere to the terms of a settlement. Maybe you have to apply for a special form of relief, like a one-shot deal from the city. Thousands of New Yorkers are facing eviction. Is there a way for them to share their experiences with you?

Yes, please do. Please reach out. There's a form on our website where you can. share your experience with us. You can also email me directly at dbrand at w-n-y-c.org. And our website, it's gothamist.com. What about property owners? Do you want to hear from them, too? Yeah, we definitely want to hear from property owners. A lot of property owners in the city are still dealing with the consequences of the COVID pandemic and, you know, struggling to get by, really hurting from unpaid rent. So we want to hear from you. What makes you file to evict tenants? What's the ongoing

impact of the COVID pandemic look like for you. And are you owed background? And how is that affecting your ability to operate housing? You can check out our eviction tracker on our news website, Gothamist. That's WNIC's David Brand and Neil Meta. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, Sean. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcast. We'll be back this evening.