COURIER LIFE, A 12 UG. 27-SEPT. 2, 2021
‘Back to Albany!’
Advocates arrested protesting evictions
Activists protest evictions in Downtown Brooklyn. Photo by Ben Brachfeld
BY BEN BRACHFELD
Housing advocates, including
a number of local
politicians, were arrested
on Thursday morning
in Downtown Brooklyn
while protesting against
the US Supreme Court’s
ruling that struck down
the state’s eviction moratorium
— potentially ushering
in a wave of evictions
at the end of the
month.
Activists were arrested
after sitting down
in the middle of the roadway
at Court and Remsen
streets, adjacent
to St. Francis College,
where the State Senate
was holding a hearing
on New York’s lackluster
Emergency Rental Assistance
Program.
After repeated warnings,
cops with the
NYPD’s Strategic Response
Group arrested
around a dozen protesters
in the roadway and
charged them with disorderly
conduct.
Among those arrested
were Sunset Park Assemblymember
Marcela Mitaynes
and Queens Assemblymember
Zohran
Kwame Mamdani, as
well as City Council candidates
Sandy Nurse and
Alexa Avilés.
They were arrested
with the intention of
bringing awareness to
the plight of the state’s
renters in the wake of the
Supreme Court’s ruling,
as well as the impending
expiration of the moratorium
and the state’s slow
rollout of rent relief to
tenants and landlords.
While in cuffs and being
led to a prison transport
van, Mitaynes said
that legislators needed to
return to Albany immediately
to restore protections
for tenants.
“As soon as I get out of
jail, we have to go back to
Albany,” Mitaynes told
Brooklyn Paper.
The Supreme Court
last week struck down
a key tenet of the state’s
eviction moratorium,
which had allowed tenants
to avoid going to
Housing Court and stall
eviction proceedings if
they submitted a “hardship
declaration” form
showing that they had
experienced economic
distress as a result of the
pandemic.
The state has had an
eviction moratorium in
place since March of 2020,
when the COVID-19 pandemic
fi rst washed over
New York. The Centers
for Disease Control and
Prevention recently announced
a new federal
eviction moratorium for
counties with high COVID
transmission rates, guidelines
that currently include
all fi ve boroughs
— though that could stop
applying to New York
City if transmission rates
get low enough.
Landlords sued to stop
the moratorium, arguing
that their lack of ability to
challenge tenants’ claims
violated their rights to due
process. Landlords have
also said that their inability
to collect rent from
those tenants experiencing
hardship produced a
hardship on them, especially
for smaller property
owners.
The nation’s highest
court untimely sided with
the landlords, with the
three liberal justices opposed
to the 6-3 conservative
led ruling.
The Emergency Rental
Assistance Program
(ERAP), the state’s major
attempt to address this
problem, which allows
tenants to get credit for
up to a year in back rent
and three months of prospective
rent — with state
payments going directly
to landlords — has been
a bungling disaster: The
City reported that less
than 5 percent of the $2.7
billion allocated for rent
relief statewide had been
disbursed as of Aug. 17.
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