Lawmakers returned to Albany in August for an extraordinary session of the state Legislature to extend New York's eviction moratorium to Jan. 15. Lawmakers also included a provision that allowed landlords to contest hardship claims by tenant in court.

It was a necessary fix in order to comply with a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that said part of New York's eviction moratorium was unconstitutional.

To fix the issue, tenants now must document the financial strain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic instead of just signing a declaration.

But according to Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator at Housing Justice for All, if a landlord ultimately refuses to accept emergency rental assistance program (ERAP) money for qualified tenants, it’s considered a form of housing discrimination.

“The state of New York needs to do a much better job letting everybody know that refusing to accept rental assistance money is discrimination under source-of-income discrimination laws in our state,” Weaver told Capital Tonight.

That statement was echoed by a Legal Aid attorney.

“Yes, the law is very clear,” said Judith Goldiner, attorney-in-charge of the Legal Aid Society's Civil Law Reform Unit. “Refusing to accept ERAP funds is source-of-income discrimination.”

According to tenant advocates, New York state’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program has gone from a trickle to a downpour. 

The Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) has now committed most of the money that New York had to distribute, but much of the promised funding has yet to be distributed.

“Gov. Kathy Hochul has committed an immense amount of resources to new outreach making sure that people are aware of the program,” explained Weaver.

One change is that 100 new staff members have been assigned to “match” the paperwork that tenants must fill out with the paperwork that must be filed by landlords.

Thus far, according to Weaver, $1.6 billion has been committed, but only about $500,000 has been sent to landlords.

“We still have a lot left to go,” Weaver said.

Here is OTDA’s summary of assistance payments through last week:

  • Total applications: 215,542
  • Total assistance obligated and/or paid: $1.6 billion
  • Number of payments issued to landlords: 40,337
  • Value of payments issued to landlords: $517.51 million
  • Number of provisionally approved tenant applications submitted in June or July pending landlord verification: 81,603
  • Estimated value of provisionally approved tenant applications submitted in June or July pending landlord verification: $1.04 billion

There are still hurdles when it comes to matching renter applications with landlord applications. One, is that for every address a landlord owns they have to create a new email address, something that Weaver called “weird."

“But landlords are certainly helped by this,” Weaver said. “It’s a program that ultimately helps pay their rent.” 

Capital Tonight reached out to the Hochul administration regarding how it will respond to landlords who decide not to accept ERAP funding. They responded with this statement:

“New York State condemns discrimination in any form and those responsible for discriminating against tenants will be held accountable. Under state law, if the tenant is determined eligible for ERAP assistance and the landlord has not provided necessary information so the rental payment may be issued, the amount of rental assistance that the landlord would have been paid is set aside for 180 days so the landlord may submit the required information. OTDA is in the process of notifying unresponsive landlords of the 180-day timeframe to submit required information, so it is not yet known whether any landlords are refusing to accept payment. As a result, unless there is direct evidence of discrimination, making referrals at this time would be premature.”