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In another signal that he intends to govern for the city’s tenant majority, administration officials stood with advocates calling for more resources to aid tenants in housing court. But they didn’t commit to any specific promises—or extra funding.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani visited housing court Monday as his administration pledged to work with tenants to help those facing eviction.
In another signal that he intends to govern for the city’s tenant majority, administration officials stood with advocates calling for more resources to aid tenants in housing court. But they didn’t commit to any specific promises—or extra funding.
City Hall said Mamdani is the first mayor to tour an operational housing court, with the goal of learning more about how the system works.
“[The mayor] wants to see the challenges and work on addressing them. Even those that have built up for many years,” said Steve Banks, the city’s corporation counsel who accompanied the mayor on the tour.
City marshals conducted over 19,000 evictions in 2025 and over 5,000 so far in 2026—on pace for around the same amount as last year, and more than two years ago.
While he may be the first mayor to go to housing court with policymaking in mind, other mayors have visited before, like when Rudy Giuliani opened the new Bronx housing court building in 1997 and Ed Koch visited Brooklyn housing court when officials installed a computer system there in the late 1970s.
Of the tenants who show up to housing court to fight an eviction, many do so alone. Just a fraction of eligible tenants—40 to 50 percent—get access to legal help through the city’s “Right to Counsel” initiative that promises a lawyer to every low-income tenant facing eviction.
The program doesn’t have enough lawyers or enough funding to meet that demand. And it seems unlikely to get more this year, as the mayor tries to fill a sizable budget gap.
“We’ve been very creative for the first 100 days in dealing with an extraordinarily challenging budget environment, at the same time making progress on things that really matter to everyday New Yorkers. Lawyers and rent payments really matter,” said Banks.
While the mayor and the City’s Comptroller, Mark Levine, got a tour inside, a group of tenants with the Right to Counsel Coalition rallied outside, asking for the mayor’s support to fully fund Right to Counsel, create an eviction task force, and pass state legislation supporting the program.
The administration did not yet commit to meeting those priorities.
“We continue to be engaged with stakeholders, including [the Right to Counsel Coalition], and [Monday] morning, senior administration officials stopped by their rally outside of Brooklyn Housing Court and promised to continue working together on our shared values and priorities,” said a spokesperson for the mayor.
Administration officials, including tenant czar Cea Weaver and Deputy Mayor for Housing Leila Bozorg, stood with tenants outside.
“We are glad to see Mayor Mamdani paying attention to the eviction crisis in this city and speaking directly to tenants in Housing Court who are fighting for their homes and we look forward to the whole City working with us to stop evictions,” said Randy Dillard, tenant leader with Community Action for Safe Apartments (CASA) and member of the RTC NY Coalition Steering Committee, in a statement.
Administrative Judge Shahabuddeen Ally, who led the tour, said the mayor was interested in learning more about how the court functioned and the “gap” in how many eligible tenants actually get lawyers.
“I think the mayor is very well informed about what’s happening,” said Ally.
Tenants vowed to keep the pressure on, and hope that the mayor will hear their calls at a time when evictions remain near pre-pandemic peaks.
“It’s not that we don’t want to pay our rent,” asked Ronette Bradley, a member of the Right to Counsel Steering Committee. “Does the landlord know that they signed the paper to give repairs? … That we deserve dignity and respect?”
Here’s what else happened this week in housing—
ICYMI, from City Limits:
- A City Council bill is looking to reform the city’s shelter intake process for families with children, who have to provide two years of their housing history and prove they have no other place to stay—a bar that advocates say delays their access to services and keeps them unhoused longer.
- New York reopened applications this week for a federal program that helps low-income households buy fans or air conditioners to keep their homes cool in summer. But the initiative’s future is once again uncertain, as the White House looks to slash its funding next year.
- City officials are making another attempt to tackle an issue high on many New Yorkers’ list of complaints about life in the city: the proliferation of construction scaffolding, or sidewalk sheds, around so many of its buildings.
ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:
- NYCHA is hoping to convince a group of Chelsea Addition tenants—the last holdouts there—to relocate to another senior housing site, as the authority looks to demolish and rebuild their existing building, The City reports.
- A federal emergency housing voucher program that’s helping more than 5,000 low-income city households pay their rent is ending next month, leaving tenants in a bind, according to Gothamist.
- The mayor is rolling out a public insurance option for city landlords, and an attempt to tackle escalating costs, the New York Times reports.
- Gov. Hochul has agreed to tax the rich—or, at least, raise taxes on their second luxury homes through a long-debated pied-à-terre tax, City & State reports.
- The state’s pension fund has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in a private equity firm that’s buying up apartment buildings across Brooklyn and Queens, according to New York Focus.
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