Government Law
NYC to hire more lawyers, nearly double $34M budget to battle evictions
Faced with a growing population of homeless individuals and families and a lack of good shelter options, the city of New York is planning to hire eviction defense lawyers.
The city hopes this will help alleviate the problem by reducing the number of people that are forced from their homes, reports the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.). It is planning to increase the current annual budget of $34 million for such legal services to $60 million by 2017.
“It’s just David vs. Goliath when you have tenants without a lawyer,” commissioner Steve Banks of the city’s Human Resources Administration told the newspaper. “It’s far more cost-effective to invest in resources to prevent eviction than to open and pay for shelters once someone is evicted.”
