Rivera: Put Good Cause legislation in state budget

With the state budget deadline looming this weekend, state Sen. Gustavo Rivera reiterated his views on the Good Cause Eviction bill, which he wants included in the fiscal year 2024 spending plan.

State Sen. Julia Salazar of Brooklyn and Assemblywoman Pamela Hunter of Syracuse sponsor that bill. Both Rivera and Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz are co-sponsors of the bill. Here is a letter he has sent to The Riverdale Press:

“For the last decade, I represented a district with one of the highest rates of rent-regulated apartments in the state with approximately 95 percent of renters living in rent-stabilized or rent-controlled units. My new district has a far more urgent need for guardrails as the proportion of market-rate apartments is now over 20 percent.

Living in a rent-stabilized apartment myself, I know firsthand that rent-regulated tenants enjoy a certain peace of mind that comes with guaranteed lease renewals and limited rent increases. That’s why I’m advocating for similar standards for the thousands of families living in unregulated, market-rate apartments across the state by passing the Good Cause Eviction Bill.

The rights that Good Cause would extend to these unprotected tenants are limited compared to those that come with rent-regulated apartments. However, any tenant with a decent landlord who expects a lease renewal and reasonable rent increases would welcome enshrining those expectations into law. This bill would require landlords to justify rent hikes greater than 3 percent or 150 percent of the Consumer Price Index and give tenants the power to challenge evictions in court that are arbitrary, retaliatory, or discriminatory.

Tenants who have been forced out of their apartments when their landlord doubled their rent or increased it by hundreds or thousands of dollars, or were not offered a lease renewal despite paying rent on time and keeping their home cared for and clean, know how irrational these lack of protections can be.

Unregulated tenants currently have no recourse, which allows corporate landlords and unscrupulous building owners to artificially drive up rents, increasing homelessness and poverty. With New Yorkers facing a housing crisis of historic proportions, New Yorkers have every right to demand that Albany assertively address the volatility of our housing market. Owner-occupied homes with one-to-four units are not included in Good Cause, despite the falsehoods that Big Real Estate is perpetuating to homeowners and small property owners to sow division between working class New Yorkers.

Long-term stability of New Yorkers is dependent on eliminating the uncertainty that the majority of tenants face every time their lease is up. High eviction rates and homelessness harm everyone in our communities, make it harder for children to succeed in school, slow down our economy, and are a risk to our collective public health.

In New Jersey, similar safeguards have been in place for nearly 50 years and the state’s eviction rates are dramatically lower than New York’s — all while new apartment construction continues to boom across the state.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed an ambitious housing development plan in the budget with the Housing Compact, but it is incomplete without prioritizing the preservation of the affordable housing that exists. The broad strokes of Good Cause Eviction will help keep New Yorkers in their homes and help them remain there for years to come.

We must prioritize the needs of New York residents over corporate building owners for the safety and stability of New York State and we can accomplish this goal in the state budget due March 31 by including the Good Cause Eviction bill in it.”