New York passes bill extending eviction moratorium to January

New York

NEW York state lawmakers on Wednesday agreed to extend sweeping protections against evictions into next year, moving to keep hundreds of thousands of people whose finances have been battered by the pandemic in their homes.

The move was the first by a state to put in place new barriers to eviction after the US Supreme Court last week rejected the Biden administration's moratorium. It came as many parts of the country, including New York, have struggled to distribute tens of billions of dollars in pandemic rent relief that seeks to address renters' unpaid bills.

After a separate Supreme Court ruling last month blocked a key piece of New York's previous statewide moratorium, many tenant advocates had feared a wave of evictions was looming.

But the new agreement, which was passed by the state Legislature late Wednesday, now creates one of the most extensive protections in the nation. Only five other states and Washington, DC, currently have eviction moratoriums in place, according to the White House, and many of those protections expire at some point this year.

"I think it's huge for renters," said Brendan Cheney, director of policy and communications for the New York Housing Conference, a nonprofit that advocates for affordable housing. He said it gives people "more time and more stability" to learn about how to access the rent relief programme.

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The move reflected how, even as vaccinations are helping revive many parts of the economy, the enormous amount of rent owed threatens to hobble the recovery, leaving large numbers of low-income residents facing debt or homelessness.

The need in New York is particularly acute. No other state has a higher share of renters than New York, with the vast majority living in New York City. More than 700,000 households are behind on rent, according to a recent analysis of US census data, trailing only California, where about 750,000 households are behind.

Though lawmakers believe the legislation will conform with the Supreme Court ruling on the state's previous moratorium, the new measures could face court challenges, with a major landlord group already threatening to file a lawsuit if it believes the legislation will curtail the rights of property owners. NYTIMES