Establishes a subpart to hear eviction matters related to affordable housing providers and small landlords

• Democratic2

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Brian Kavanagh says this is needed

In 2024, there were 43,000 eviction filings in subsidized housing in New York City, more than a third of all eviction filings. According to an analysis by NYU Furman Center, the median arrears sought at filing is just over $4,500, but it can take more than a year to resolve these cases, accumulating arrears and raising the cost to the City of provid- ing emergency rental assistance, which now averages almost $10,000 per household. In addition to subsidized housing, this bill would allow cases brought by for-profit building owners who own fewer than 10 units in the state to be adjudicated in the new subpart. There does not appear to be reli- able data on how many such cases there might be, but the Furman Center examined data on 2025 eviction filings from private owners and 2024 one-year American Community Survey estimates of occupied rental units by building size, and found that there were 12,286 cases (11 percent of total filings) where tenants lived in buildings with 1-4 units, and 4,625 (4 percent) where tenants lived in buildings with 5-9 units. The number of cases brought by small landlords would likely be a modest fraction of these figures. To streamline the process of connecting tenants to emergency rental assistance, the New York Housing Conference released the Affordable Housing Stability Court Initiative in March 2026, a proposal to "estab- lish a special court part to serve tenants of affordable housing with city or state regulatory agreement or building units owned by small landlords, preventing eviction and stabilizing tenants while quickly resolving arrears for building owners." Resolving non-payment eviction cases in a timely manner with emergency rental assistance helps support both tenants and property owners. Directing eviction cases brought by subsidized housing providers and small landlords to a special part in housing court would make it easier for the courts and the City to provide services, such as housing naviga- tors and resource coordinators, that would work directly with tenants and property owners to resolve cases by assisting with applications for emergency assistance, plans to enable tenants to afford the rent moving forward, etc. This would be beneficial to all parties: tenants would secure emergency rental assistance to avoid eviction, property owners would be able to more promptly receive rent arrears payments, and the City might realize net savings by resolving cases with lower average emergency payments.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.