The Right to Counsel NYC Coalition (RTCNYC) and TakeRoot Justice released a new report, Organizing is Different Now: How the Right to Counsel Strengthens the Tenant Movement in New York City, showing the lasting impacts of the successful effort in 2017 to secure the right to counsel in New York City, which made the city the first in the country to provide a right to counsel (see Memo, 8/21/17). The right-to-counsel legislation guarantees tenants with household incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty level access to free legal representation when facing eviction or other housing challenges in court. Past research has proven the success of right to counsel in reducing evictions by increasing legal representation for tenants, but this report demonstrates the significant contributions of right to counsel to tenant organizing. Among other things, the report finds an increase in the number of involved tenants, heightened confidence among tenants in their ability to navigate housing court and take action against their landlords, greater knowledge-sharing about and training on tenants’ rights, and stronger tenant-led infrastructure. The authors hope the report will inspire other tenants and organizers to fight for right to counsel in their cities. They also aim to inspire attorneys to reflect on their roles in the larger tenant movement, encourage policy makers to see the value of non-traditional data, and focus media attention on the tenant movement.
Data collection and analysis for the report was led by TakeRoot Justice, which provides legal and participatory research and policy support to New York City grassroots and community-based groups, and RTCNYC, a broad-based, tenant-led coalition that formed in 2014 and led the successful campaign to secure the right to counsel. Using a participatory action research method, tenants and housing organizers were trained to facilitate five focus groups with a total of 27 tenants and six community organizers. Tenants were asked about the impact of right to counsel on various aspects of their lives. Organizers were asked about how right to counsel functioned as an organizing tool, the impact of bringing lawyers into the tenant movement, and whether their organizing strategies had changed as a result of right to counsel.
Key findings from the focus groups are corroborated by detailed quotes from participants. The findings include the following:
- Tenants feel less stress and fear and more confidence knowing they have the right to counsel.
- Right to counsel bolsters organizing in a variety of ways.
- Having the right to an attorney in housing court is empowering and protective.
- Right to counsel creates opportunities for tenants, organizers, and attorneys to build and navigate relationships in the service of the tenants’ rights movement.
- Right to counsel protects undocumented and marginalized people, helping them become more engaged in the tenants’ rights movement.
- The Right to Counsel NYC Coalition has been deliberate about and successful in creating a tenant-led infrastructure and movement-building space.
The report also highlights the following considerations for tenants and organizers in other cities to keep in mind in their respective right-to-counsel campaigns:
- Right to counsel is powerful and important to fight for nationwide.
- Working in communities with others is crucial in the fight for right to counsel.
- It is important to persevere throughout the fight.
- Tenant leadership is essential in the fight to win right to counsel.
- Guiding values and principles help center the campaign.
- Internal political education and strategy alignment are important within the coalition.
- Participants should focus on implementation in addition to the initial victory.
The right-to-counsel campaign began in 2013 with the tenants’ rights organizing group Community Action for Safe Apartments (CASA), which later helped form the citywide RTCNYC. After more than four years of tenant organizing and coalition building, right to counsel was finally secured in 2017 and has proven over the years to be largely successful in stabilizing housing for New York City tenants and preventing the devastating consequences of eviction. According to a report by the New York City Human Resources Administration’s Office of Civil Justice, which implements the right-to-counsel legislation, legal organizations funded through the right-to-counsel law provided assistance to approximately 42,000 households in City Fiscal Year 2021. Eviction filings were 46% lower than in fiscal year 2020 and 72% lower than in fiscal year 2019. Amidst the drop in filings, tenants’ legal representation increased approximately 11% in fiscal year 2021 compared to fiscal year 2020. In housing court eviction cases and New York City Housing Authority termination cases that were resolved by the Office of Civil Justice’s legal service providers, 84% of tenants were allowed to remain in their homes.
Right to counsel was originally scheduled to be phased in over four years and reach full implementation in 2022. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, RTCNYC successfully organized again to accelerate full implementation of the law (see Memo, 12/6/21), which secured increased protections for tenants during the devastating public health crisis. The pandemic has also influenced the passage of subsequent right-to-counsel legislation across the country, in many cases modeled after New York City’s law. According to NLIHC’s Tenant Protections Database, in 2021 alone, three states and eight cities passed some version of right-to-counsel legislation.
“Right to counsel evens the playing field so that so that poor, immigrant communities of color can have equal access to justice and a fighting chance against displacement,” says Abby Ng, policy and communications coordinator for Tenants & Neighbors, an NLIHC state partner based in New York City. “Too often, Tenants & Neighbors receives calls from tenants who are panicked after receiving an eviction notice. We’ve witnessed that it is empowering for tenants in a vulnerable moment to know that they have the right to counsel. We are grateful and proud to have right to counsel in New York City, and we hope to see it pass statewide and throughout the country.”
The authors of the report conclude that their movement was never just about tenants having the right to representation, but rather about changing the balance of power between tenants and landlords and creating more space for tenants to organize. Organizers across the country can learn important lessons from the report to support their efforts towards these goals.
Read the report here.