New York state is experiencing a housing crisis, and it continues to get worse. Eviction moratoriums and emergency rental assistance programs that were enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic have ended and the threat of eviction looms for hundreds of thousands of families. This especially impacts Black renters, particularly Black women. New research from the Legal Defense Fund (LDF)’s Thurgood Marshall Institute (TMI) provides further evidence of this disparity and lays bare the racial justice implications of New York state’s housing crisis. And it calls critical attention to the urgent need for a good cause eviction protection law to help address this racialized inequity.
New York landlords filed nearly 200,000 eviction petitions in 2022, almost double the number of eviction filings in 2020 and almost triple the number in 2021. Most of these eviction filings are due to tenants being unable to afford rent. Still, about 20% of eviction filings in New York state are for holdover evictions — those initiated for a reason other than non-payment of rent, such as retaliation for raising concerns about the home or simply because the lease agreement has expired. Black women tenants have even faced the threat of eviction as a form of sexual harassment. The concerning reality is that many New York renters live in their homes at the whim of their landlords. And any time their lease is up or their landlord wants them out, they face possible eviction, even if they are keeping up with rent payments.
Good cause eviction protection laws prevent landlords from evicting tenants unless they have a “good cause.” These laws provide tenants with a baseline right to remain in their homes if they are abiding by the basic requirements of their lease. If a tenant fails to pay rent or otherwise substantially violates their rental agreement, then landlords would have a good cause and could still pursue eviction. This means that good cause eviction protection would primarily protect renters against holdover evictions.
For several years, housing advocacy groups in New York State have fought for a good cause eviction protection law that would prevent landlords from evicting tenants without a good cause, acting as a safeguard against holdover evictions. Given the findings from our new analysis, we expect that a good cause eviction law will help promote racial justice in housing and provide much-needed protections to Black New York renters.
Evidence from around the country suggests that Black tenants, specifically Black women tenants, face a disproportionately high risk of eviction. TMI’s new analysis adds to this body of research and specifically documents how counties and neighborhoods in New York with larger Black renter populations face significantly higher rates of eviction filings, including holdover eviction filings.
TMI analyzed statewide data on eviction filings and New York City data on executed evictions and found that Black households in New York are more vulnerable to eviction than white households in the state. These findings shed light on how evictions pose a serious threat to racial justice in housing in New York. Some of our key findings are below (and you can view the data, code, and methods used for the analysis here).
It is important to note that Black New York residents are more likely to be renters than homeowners. Specifically, two of every three Black households in the state are renters, while two of every three white households are homeowners. In fact, the Black-white homeownership gap in New York state is larger than the nationwide Black-white homeownership gap. As a result, tenant protections have the potential to benefit the hundreds of thousands of Black renter households in New York.
Recent census data shows that 6.2% of Black residents in New York state report that they have felt pressure to move in the last six months because they were threatened with eviction or told to leave by their landlord. By contrast, only 1.4% of white residents in New York state reported the same. Put another way, Black New York residents are 4.6 times as likely to feel pressure to move due to the threat of eviction as white New York residents.
The New York State Unified Court System provides statewide data on eviction filings, including holdover eviction filings. Our analysis of this data shows that New York counties with a higher percentage of Black renters faced a higher rate of total residential eviction filings and holdover eviction filings, as seen in Figure 1 below. Specifically, a 10 percentage point increase[1] in the percent of Black renters in a county was associated with a 55% increase in the rate of total residential eviction filings and a 33% increase in the rate of residential holdover eviction filings.
[1] A 10 percentage point increase reflects comparing a county where 5% of renters are Black to a county where 15% of renters are Black, for example.
At the ZIP code level, we observed the same pattern. For ZIP codes in New York State with available data, those with a higher percentage of Black renters faced a greater rate of total residential eviction filings and holdover eviction filings. More specifically, a 10 percentage point increase in the percent of Black renters in a ZIP code was associated with a 19% increase in the rate of total residential eviction filings and an 11% increase in the rate of residential holdover eviction filings.
In addition to data on eviction filings, New York City has data on executed evictions. ZIP codes with a higher percentage of Black renters also faced a higher rate of residential evictions, as depicted in Figure 2. A 10 percentage point increase in Black renters in a given ZIP code was associated with a 17% increase in the rate of residential evictions.
Together, the findings from our analysis demonstrate that New York counties and neighborhoods with higher Black renter populations face a disproportionate risk of eviction, including holdover evictions. This is consistent with national research demonstrating that Black people face a higher risk of eviction.
Every eviction can be irrevocably destabilizing and devastating for families and broader communities. Evictions not only mean losing one’s home, but they also lead to harmful downstream consequences, like loss of employment, reduced earnings and access to credit, adverse health outcomes, disruptions to children’s education, and potential loss of child custody. At the community level, evictions often facilitate the process of displacing Black communities, contribute to neighborhood poverty and inequality, and result in decreased political participation. Even the threat of eviction or an eviction filing alone can lead to adverse mental and physical health consequences, wealth extraction through court fees, and a reduced likelihood of securing future housing.
In New York, as in many places across the country, Black families and communities face a disproportionate risk of eviction, and thus are more likely to face the destabilizing and harmful consequences that follow eviction. This constitutes a racial justice crisis in the state that requires urgent action.
Enacting good cause eviction protection in New York will likely protect renters from no-fault evictions and therefore reduce the rate of holdover evictions in the state. New York’s Good Cause Eviction bill was first introduced in the state legislature in 2019 but has failed to pass each year. Most recently, the bill was re-introduced in 2023 and is expected to be considered again in 2024.
Similar laws have been enacted in other states like New Jersey, California, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Washington. A Princeton University study of good cause eviction protection in four California cities demonstrated that implementing good cause eviction protection laws was associated with a reduction in eviction filings and executed evictions.
In addition, we anticipate that good cause eviction protection will significantly benefit New York renters in predominantly Black neighborhoods who currently face a disproportionate risk of total evictions and holdover evictions. Given the results of our analysis, we believe good cause eviction protection will bring us closer to racial justice in housing in New York — an urgent imperative.
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