Facing Evictions– Without the Right to Counsel

In today's Gotham Gazette, State Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman pens a column highlighting the need for a right to civil counsel, particularly for low-income tenants facing eviction. Legal Services NYC Executive Director Andrew Scherer explains why so many New Yorkers go unrepresented, and why the need for "a civil Gideon" is so great.

New York's Family Court recognition of the right to counsel is the
broadest in the country, affording counsel in cases involving foster
care placements and removals, and denial of paternity for example. A
parent who could face jail for being delinquent in child support
payments is entitled to counsel, but a custodial parent seeking child
support is not.

But the biggest problem, according to Andrew Scherer, executive director of Legal Services of New York City,
is in housing evictions and now foreclosures. Suffiicient legal
resources, including attorneys, do not exist to meet the tenant demand
for representation, and they do not exist partly because there is no
right to legal representation.

There are 27,000 to 30,000 evictions in New York City every year,
almost all them involving tenants without lawyers. Since there is no
right to counsel, "all existing resources put together are not nearly
enough to begin to meet the need," says Scherer.

 

Read the complete article here.