Housing Court

Director of Development Crystal Surdyk told the City Council Housing Committee that Judge George Panebianco will be hearing 15 cases a week, which is up five cases a week from last year.

Council member Marie Carrubba said while the regular evictions for public health and safety issues have not stopped, the eviction moratorium for tenants who were unable to pay rent due to financial hardships caused by the Pandemic is ending Saturday, January 15.

Governor Kathy Hochul said in a briefing Tuesday that the eviction moratorium will likely expire Saturday as planned without intervention from her office or the State Legislature.

She added she is asking the federal government for more rent relief to aid landlords and tenants ahead of the likely expiration of the moratorium.

The New York State Office of Temporary Disability Assistance announced it has reopened its Emergency Rental Assistance Program even though officials said it needs additional funding to support the backlog of existing and future applications.

Hochul said New York State only received $27 million of the $1 billion it sought from the Federal government.

New York will be joining other states in sending a joint letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to request additional federal funding.

The state funding is now available to help landlords that couldn’t participate in the New York State Emergency Rental Assistance Program due to a federal requirement for tenants to participate in the application process.

The application process opened Thursday with the Landlord Rental Assistance Program providing up to 12 months of past-due rent to landlords who are ineligible for the federally funded program because their tenants either declined to complete an application or vacated the residence with arrears. Priority will be given to those landlords owning small-to-medium-sized properties.

Eligible landlords must own units leased for at or below 150 percent of fair market rent for their location and must have documented the rental arrears accumulated after March 1st, 2020 that are owed by a tenant who either vacated the unit or is declining to participate in the Emergency Rental Assistance Program. Priority is given to those landlords owning a building with 20 or fewer units and who apply within the first 45 days of the program’s opening date of October 7th.

Governor Kathy Hochul has announced that the application process for $373 million in Heating Energy Assistance Program monies is now open in New York State.

The funds are for low- and middle-income New Yorkers who need assistance keeping their homes warm during the upcoming winter season.

The state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance oversees the HEAP program and provides federal funding to assist homeowners and renters with their heating costs during the weather.

Eligible homeowners and renters may receive up to $751 in heating assistance, depending on their income, household size and how they heat their home.

Governor Hochul also made $150 million in federal funding available to help low-income households pay heating utility arrears if they do not qualify for the that assistance under New York’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program. The one-time payments will cover all accumulated heating utility arrears up to $10,000 per household, with applications for assistance accepted at local departments of social services in person or by telephone.

Jamestown Board of Public Utilities Customer and Information Services Manager Frank Galeazzo said after the state of emergency ended in June, the BPU gained the ability to shut off water and electric for past due balances. He said they’ve had success with that, “We had shut off approximately 1,000 customers since July, mid-July, and that totaled about $700,000 worth of past due balances. And we’ve collected about $500,000.”

Galeazzo said the BPU is still working to help customers with past due accounts, “They’ve either paid off their arrears, which is great. We’ve been working with them setting up special payment arrangements. We’ve been pointing them in directions to seek assistance whether it’s through any of the state of federal programs.”

Those looking for assistance with past due BPU bills may contact the BPU at (716) 661-1660, visit them online at jamestownbpu.com, or visit mybenefits.ny.gov.

$150 million in heating utility assistance has been announced by New York State.

Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the funding will help low-income households that have fallen behind on their utility bills during the COVID-19 pandemic. Administered by the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, the regular arrears supplement is available to households who are eligible for the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) and behind on their heating utility bills, but that do not qualify for the utility assistance offered by New York’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program.

Federal funding will cover all accumulated heating utility arrears up to $10,000 and comes as the end of the moratorium on utility disconnections approaches in late December.

About 83,000 HEAP recipients had fallen behind on their utility bills as of March 2021, with these households owing an average arrears of about $1,370, or roughly $113 million statewide. While the Emergency Rental Assistance Program is providing utility arrears assistance for eligible renters, homeowners and those who do not owe rent arrears do not qualify for this assistance, including customers of municipally owned utilities.

The Chautauqua County Department of Social Services is accepting applications for assistance and can be reached at (716) 753-4385.

Beginning today, middle-income renters previously ineligible for assistance can begin applying for $125 million in state funding through the Emergency Rental Assistance Program. Additionally, while some is undergoing final verification, Governor Hochul announced that over $1.05 billion in Excluded Workers Program funds have been approved for distribution to date.

When Hochul was sworn in three weeks ago, she stated her top priority was to “accelerate getting relief money out the door as quickly as possible to New Yorkers struggling from the economic devastation of the pandemic.”

Hochul has taken several steps to ramp up the state’s pandemic relief efforts, including creating the new Office of Pandemic Relief, enacting changes to accelerate the state’s rent relief program and attract more applicants, and visiting New Yorkers in hurricane damaged areas to help ensure they were being connected with and receiving the help they need.

Credit: Hans Pennink/AP

The New York State Legislature voted Wednesday to extend New York’s eviction moratorium to January and expanded the provisions of the federal rent relief program.

The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle reports the original residential and commercial eviction and foreclosure moratoria expired on August 31st. Governor Kathy Hochul said the eviction extension was needed because the federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program has been slow to distribute funds.

The State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance said that program has so far distributed or obligated more than $800 million to tenants and landlords.

The program provides up to 12 months in back rent and up to three months of future rent payments, as well as up to 12 months of overdue electric or gas bill payments to eligible tenants.

Tenants qualify based on income benchmarks, risk of homelessness and whether they’ve experienced a reduction in household income or increase in costs due to COVID-19.

At the same time, the Supreme Court last month struck down the New York moratorium’s provision allowing tenants to stave off eviction with only a form testifying to their financial hardship.

On Wednesday, the Legislature extended the moratorium until January 15, 2022 and introduced the measure that includes refining the extended moratorium’s policies and processes.

Landlords, banks and mortgage holders now have the ability to challenge a tenant or property owner’s “hardship declaration,” or a document attesting to their financial losses, increase in expenses or inability to pay for moving expenses because of COVID-19.

If a challenge occurs, a judge will now be able to look into a tenant or property owner’s hardship declaration and determine whether a stay of eviction is valid.

Lawmakers also extended the Tenant Safe Harbor Act, a state law enacted last year that protects tenants from eviction if they’re able to prove financial hardship between March 7, 2020 and June 24, 2021.

A landlord, though, could still bring tenants to court over rent payments.

Republicans, including State Senator George Borrello criticized the extension. Borrello issued a statement saying, “The harm inflicted on our state’s small property owners, struggling tenants and housing market during the pandemic is one of the state’s greatest failures of the past 18 months. Unconstitutional eviction moratoriums followed by an incompetent rollout of the $2.7 billion Emergency Rental Assistance Program has pushed small property owners to the financial brink and left tenants with mounting debts and confusion about why promised relief hasn’t materialized.”

Borrello added that the amended moratorium should have allowed housing courts to resume eviction proceedings as the state works on expediting the distribution of ERAP funds.

Borrello did go on record supporting the establishment a fund to help both tenants and landlords in special circumstances who cannot apply for ERAP funds, “including tenants who are above the income limits and landlords with uncooperative tenants who refuse to apply for funds to repay their debt.”

The state’s rollout of the program, which originated from a federal COVID-19 relief package earlier this year, has been criticized by tenants and lawmakers for being sluggish, with a backlog of 160,000 applications six weeks after the launch of the online application portal in June.

The program would provide up to a year of back-rent payments and up to three months of future rent payments to eligible New Yorkers, as well as up to a year of utility payments.

Hochul said, if a tenant is eligible, they would be protected from eviction for up to one year.

Hochul announced she would dedicate $1 million in funding toward targeted marketing and outreach efforts to get the word out to New Yorkers about the relief program. OTDA will analyze application data to target areas of the state with relatively low numbers of applications.

Tenants qualify based on a variety of factors, including income benchmarks and whether they suffered financial hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Additionally, Hochul plans to form a partnership between legislators, cities and counties across the state to expedite the distribution of funding. New data showing a breakdown of rent relief payments by county will be posted on OTDA’s website later this week to increase transparency.

The state also will reassign 100 contracted workers to work solely with landlords to clarify and obtain missing information and process more applications, and conduct a rapid review of the rent relief program’s workflow.