Eviction Moratorium in the New York State During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The work aims to analyze and compare the development of the legal solutions for the eviction crisis that were introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic in the New York State by each branch of the authorities. The issue will be studied by analyzing documentsintroduced by the legislature, executive branch and judiciary, dealing with the prohibition of evicting tenants from residential and commercial premises during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper will analyze short-term solutions in the form of ordinances, as well as long-term solutions in the form of laws. Furthermore, it will try to demonstrate the minor contradictions, problems, and complexities involved with the bifurcation of the introduced legal solutions, and to show that eviction moratoria in the New York State did not provide total protection and assistance to tenants, as well as that their solutions were rather short-term. The paper will also present solutions from the federal level and compare them to state solutions in order to show the difference in approach. The article will also demonstrate that acting at the state and local level, on a smaller scale, is more effective because it is easier to reach a specific group of stakeholders. Moreover, a change in the nature of legal solutions introduced at the state level will be observed, which was caused by the change of a governor general of the New York State and the Supreme Court’s ruling that one of the laws was illegal — the paper will show how this ban was circumvented by the new state authorities.