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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Jessica Bellinder, Supervising Attorney at Legal Aid Society
2:09:11
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103 sec
Jessica Bellinder, a supervising attorney from the Legal Aid Society, testifies about the importance of preserving tenants' rights to return to their homes after displacement due to emergencies. She emphasizes the need for better information sharing between agencies, council members, and legal service providers to protect tenants' interests, especially those in rent-stabilized units.
- Proposes implementing a waiver for sharing tenant information with legal service providers early in the document collection process
- Highlights the crucial role of legal services in ensuring tenants know and can assert their rights
- Stresses the difficulty for displaced tenants to find comparable housing in the current market, making their return to original homes paramount
Jessica Bellinder
2:09:11
is Jessica Belinder.
2:09:14
I'm a supervising attorney in the Bronx neighborhood office of the Legal Aid Society for our group advocacy team there.
2:09:21
And I've worked with the council member and her staff, and I have to echo what your colleague said earlier.
2:09:30
There are very few council members who are able to connect with their residents as thoroughly and as quickly as your team does, and it has really helped us to represent tenants in The Bronx.
2:09:44
1 of the things that was mentioned with respect to the sharing of client information or tenant information that we think is important, In order for all of the work that we do to try to get buildings back into a livable order, that work is lost or is not as valuable if the tenants who originally live there cannot move back and haven't been able to preserve their rights to those units.
2:10:12
And so what we would like to see in addition to the legislation that's proposed is some waiver early on in the document collection process, whether it's with ARC or with HPD or some other entity, that allows the sharing of that information not only with the city council members but also with legal services providers because one of the things that we are able to do is ensure that tenants know their rights, ensure that they're able to exert those rights and protect their interests in returning especially to their rent stabilized tenancies.
2:10:46
And in today's market, they often cannot replace the homes that they've lost.
2:10:52
And so being able to return to those homes is paramount.