Evolving Requirements For Tenant Lawyer Funding Met With Protest
Legal organizations that represent New York City tenants are trying to keep up with evolving information about their future city funding, demanding more careful consideration of how long it takes to fight an eviction or win building-wide repairs.
The updated solicitations do not change the amount of overall proposed funding—about $408 million over three years for eviction defense and $128.7 million for anti-harassment work—but put the onus on providers to calculate how many cases they can take on, and will favor proposals that “can maximize the number of clients to be served if awarded a contract.”
“By creating this race to the bottom they are essentially destroying Right to Counsel and ensuring that the lawyers who do the majority of the work are going to be too overwhelmed to fairly represent their clients,” said Joanna Laine, a tenant lawyer with the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn.
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