Between early 2021 and 2025, the violation rate for legacy 90%+ properties increased by 47 percent, compared with 22 percent for buildings with smaller shares of stabilized units.
By 2019, the percentage of tenants with eviction cases filed against them that were represented in the ZIP Codes where Universal Access to Counsel was introduced in 2016.
“Almost half of tenants who receive an eviction filing fail to answer or show up in housing court. Yet most eviction prevention policies are focused at the housing court stage and thus miss a substantial portion of tenants at risk of eviction, many of whom receive default judgements with no appearance in court. This suggests a need to explore and evaluate the efficacy of “upstream” interventions that connect tenants with services and information ahead of court appearances as well as alternative processes for eviction proceedings that might increase tenant participation, such as virtual court appearances.”
Ingrid Gould Ellen, Katherine O'Regan, Ryan Brenner, Sophie House, and Ellie Lochhead, Half the Battle is Just Showing Up: Non-Answers and Default Judgments in Non-Payment Eviction Cases Across New York State, 2016-2022
