REMARKS
Council Member Sandy Nurse discusses bills on illegal evictions and tenant rights
0:06:28
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4 min
Council Member Sandy Nurse presents her remarks on several bills she has introduced, focusing on illegal evictions and tenant rights. She discusses the prevalence of illegal lockouts, the inadequacy of current enforcement measures, and the intent behind her proposed legislation to strengthen protections for tenants and increase penalties for landlords who violate the law.
- Nurse highlights that there have been over 15,000 marshal evictions and 5,600 illegal lockout cases in New York City since October 2023, with her district being particularly affected.
- She emphasizes the need for stronger disincentives against illegal lockouts and easier processes for lawful occupants to regain entry to their homes.
- Nurse also introduces a bill (Intro 1037) to require disclosure of rent-stabilized units in buildings to incoming tenants, aiming to increase transparency and empower tenants.
Sandy Nurse
0:06:28
Thank you, chair Sanchez.
0:06:30
Thank you for hearing my bills.
0:06:31
I really appreciate it.
0:06:33
Good morning, everyone.
0:06:35
Good morning, everyone joining us here today.
0:06:38
Today we are hearing 6 bills of mine, but I really wanna focus on about, the first, 4 bills that are on illegal evictions.
0:06:47
Since since October 2023, there have been over 15,000 marshall evictions and 5,600 illegal lockout cases in New York City.
0:06:58
During this time, we have there have just been 89 criminal summons summonses for illegal evictions despite them being a class a misdemeanor and an arrestable offense.
0:07:10
My district is hit especially hard by illegal lockouts.
0:07:14
Zip code 11207 in East New York is one of the city's top 5 zip codes with the highest number of illegal lockout filings over the past 3 years.
0:07:23
Myself, my staff have probably been to 10 or more illegal lockouts since 2022, and what my experience has shown me is that these landlords, these nefarious landlords operate with basically sheer impunity.
0:07:38
Lockouts are frantic, confusing, intense.
0:07:41
They abruptly rip people from their daily lives.
0:07:44
In the worst cases, tenants have to watch as their possessions are tossed on the curb by their landlords, hired henchmen.
0:07:51
They have to figure out not only what to do with their tossed valuables, but also where they're gonna sleep that night.
0:07:57
It's horrifying to witness, and I'm sure even more horrifying to experience.
0:08:01
It is our job to intervene at this most critical point, to stop the lockout from proceeding, restore the person to their home, and ensure property owners won't even think to lock out their tenants in the first place.
0:08:13
What tenant support does exist relies on the NYPD, an agency not designed or equipped to restore tenants back to their homes or hold property owners accountable, and nor should they be.
0:08:24
There must be a better way to disincentivize illegal lockouts while also making it easier and faster for lawful occupants to regain entry and stem the flow of people to the shelter system.
0:08:35
This is the intent of intro 621, 622, 623, and 994 to create stronger disincentives and make it easier for the lawful occupant to get back into their home.
0:08:49
What we cannot do is throw up our hands in exasperation or pass the buck.
0:08:53
Having witnessed illegal evictions, I know there are gaps in our enforcement and there must be solutions.
0:08:59
I also want to note that we have discussed potential edits to these bills with HPD, NYPD, and advocates, and I thank everyone who has given feedback so far.
0:09:09
I'm looking forward to hearing today's testimony and continuing to work with you all, and I appreciate the time you've, set aside ahead of time to help us get some really, productive feedback for these bills.
0:09:21
Lastly, intro 1037 is a basic education and awareness, bill to alert incoming tenants that their building has rent stabilized units, and incentivize them to find out more information or seek damages for being overcharged.
0:09:36
As many Yorkers are aging out of rent stabilized units, or move for other reasons, oftentimes, younger or less informed tenants move in.
0:09:45
They don't realize that they might be living in a building with rent stabilized units, they might be paying higher rent than is legal, and with such, little vacancy tenants have less bargaining power and are, forced to pay rents and compete with many many tenants.
0:10:02
And so we hope that this will bring just some basic transparency and help empower tenants to find out what's the status of their unit, and pay the rent that is is legal.
0:10:13
So I just I wanna thank the chair again.
0:10:15
You know, these these bills really come from watching illegal evictions happen, both our our staff with with police officers on scene and still finding people have their stuff thrown out at night, not having the intervention that is in the patrol guide that is lawful for them to do to hold these owners accountable, and people sleeping in their cars at night, and trying to figure out how to get to housing court.
0:10:41
Where is housing court?
0:10:42
What do I do?
0:10:43
What is my next steps?
0:10:44
We wanna make it extremely costly to break the law and and, illegally lock out tenants.
0:10:51
So thank you so much.
