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In the year New York's ban on evictions was lifted, the number of people ordered to leave homes remained well below pre-pandemic levels.
There were 4,400 evictions in 2022 after the city's eviction moratorium was lifted on Jan. 15, Crain’s New York Business reported, citing Legal Aid data. The ban was put in place in 2020 at the onset of the pandemic.
The number of evictions climbed steadily through the year, going from 143 in the month of February to 662 in November. In the first 16 days of 2023, there were 355 evictions, suggesting a far busier 2023. The Emergency Rental Assistance Program may have muted the number of evictions, but the funding shut down this month because it ran out.
"ERAP gave out over $2 billion to keep people housed, and now we're out of that money, so I think that artificially lowered the eviction rates, especially in the last year, and that's why we're seeing this uptick now," Judith Goldiner, attorney-in-charge of The Legal Aid Society's Civil Law Reform Unit, told Crain’s. "That's what really worries us, is we're heading back to exactly where we were without $2 billion to throw at this problem."
The state had requested further federal funding for ERAP multiple times, but the money provided was always far less than requested. Last year, the Treasury Department provided $119M to New York's program after Gov. Kathy Hochul requested $1.6B.
Meanwhile, rent in the city is continuing to climb. Last month, Manhattan’s net effective median rent hit $3,976, a December record, according to the appraisal firm Miller Samuel.
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