{"id":8401,"date":"2023-06-02T08:43:47","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T12:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/casa\/?p=8401"},"modified":"2023-06-02T08:47:07","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T12:47:07","slug":"tenants-take-over-bronx-and-brooklyn-housing-courts-protesting-lack-of-lawyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsettlement.org\/casa\/2023\/06\/02\/tenants-take-over-bronx-and-brooklyn-housing-courts-protesting-lack-of-lawyers\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenants Take Over Bronx and Brooklyn Housing Courts, Protesting Lack of Lawyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tenants Take Over Bronx and Brooklyn Housing Courts, Protesting Lack of Lawyers<\/h1>\n

Sam Rabiyah and Jonathan Custodio, The City<\/p>\n

\"Logo<\/a>This article was originally published<\/a> on THE CITY <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Tenant-right
Tenant advocates protested outside Brooklyn Housing Court over a lack of access to eviction lawyers. | Ben Fractenberg\/THE CITY<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tenant groups staged a pair of singalong protests at housing courts in The Bronx and Brooklyn on Wednesday morning, pairing a surprise disruption inside each building with publicly planned rallies outside.<\/p>\n

The tactic was a way to escalate their demand that New York City live up to its new Right to Counsel law, which aims to ensure free attorneys for all low-income tenants facing eviction.<\/p>\n

Since a pandemic eviction moratorium was lifted in January 2022, 45,796 eviction cases have moved forward in Housing Court, including nearly 25,000 in which the tenant did not have an attorney<\/a>. Marshals have meanwhile executed over 6,000 residential evictions.<\/p>\n

In Brooklyn\u2019s court on Livingston Street, City Councilmember Sandy Nurse (D-Brooklyn) joined leaders from Flatbush Tenant Coalition, Housing Organizers for People Empowerment and Crown Heights Tenant Union in a hallway outside the sixth-floor courtrooms.<\/p>\n

\"Councilmember
Councilmember Sandy Nurse (D-Brooklyn) joined those protesting inside the court as well as on the sidewalk outside. | Ben Fractenberg\/THE CITY<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cTenants have the power, we shall not be moved,\u201d they sang, updating the lyrics of the slave spiritual turned protest ballad. \u201cJudge Wilson, end evictions, we shall not be moved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tenants, lawyers and court staff watched, some tapping their feet to the beat or recording video on their phones. The singers circled the space, then weaved their way to the stairwells to descend to the fifth floor, and then the fourth, before court officers escorted them out of the building after telling a legal observer that protesters would be handcuffed if they didn\u2019t exit.<\/p>\n

As the court officers followed the protesters out, Thern Shivers, a Flatbush Tenant Coalition leader, addressed them: \u201cWorkers of the court and these police officers who want to be aggressive and hostile to people fighting for their rights, this could be you tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crowd outside included dozens of tenant organizers and activists, as well as Brooklyn Democratic Councilmembers Alexa Avil\u00e9s, Crystal Hudson and Lincoln Restler. The elected officials\u2019 remarks focused on the lack of funding for attorneys to represent low-income tenants.<\/p>\n

The current city budget provided $110 million to pay Right to Counsel attorneys \u2014 a fraction of the $451 million<\/a> that advocates say is needed to provide lawyers to every qualifying tenant.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur city has that money,\u201d Avil\u00e9s told the crowd, pointing to the $711 million City Council budgeted for police overtime last year. She added: \u201cThere is no other program in New York City that demonstrates this kind of success.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Denise
Denise Harrison said during a Brooklyn Housing Court rally that her landlord is trying to evict her and her family from their home on Franklin Avenue. | Ben Fractenberg\/THE CITY<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tenant advocates are still calling on the state court system to pause eligible eviction cases until tenants get access to a right to counsel lawyer, as THE CITY previously reported<\/a>. But in the meantime, money is \u201cthe one thing that the City Council and the mayor can do,\u201d Susanna Blankley, coordinator for the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition, told THE CITY.<\/p>\n

A similar scene played out at Bronx Housing Court in Concourse Village, as about a dozen tenant leaders from the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition as well as Community Action for Safe Apartments (CASA) sang and chanted in English and Spanish in the bustling fifth-floor hallway.<\/p>\n

\n

The fifth floor of the Bronx housing court is one of the places where evictions go forward every day, but NOT THIS MORNING pic.twitter.com\/WxlkNjNMkO<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 #EvictionFreeBX CASA-New Settlement (@CASAbronx) May 31, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n