Bronx, NY – Following the 6-3 Supreme Court decision on August 26 to overturn the CDC eviction moratorium, which was divided along party lines of the appointing President, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz issued the following statement:

“This politically motivated judicial activism will undoubtedly put countless American families at risk of imminent eviction, and it has never been more clear that we must immediately adapt and extend New York’s eviction moratorium. We must add language to allow landlords to challenge a hardship declaration in order to comply with the recent SCOTUS ruling on New York’s CEEFPA eviction moratorium, and we must extend the expiration date of this moratorium until such time that the virus transmission rates have subsided. I am ready to return to Albany as soon as next week to enact new legislation and I urge my colleagues to join me.

“When I passed the first extension of my COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act back in May of this year, there were two main rationales: high rates of COVID-19 transmission and the lack of disbursements from the NYS Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance for New York’s ERAP program. By all accounts, both of those circumstances should have abated by the end of August, but it is readily apparent that neither of them have been resolved. Infection and hospitalization rates are higher now than they were in May and OTDA has only disbursed a small fraction of the billions of dollars that needs to get out the door on behalf of both tenants and landlords.

“I am very encouraged by Governor Hochul’s focus on the ERAP program and the eviction protections attached to those applications, but I would also add that ERAP does not protect all tenants. In particular, there are tenants who have paid every month of rent but are still facing holdover eviction proceedings because their landlord simply does not want to renew their lease. These tenants are not eligible for the eviction protections under ERAP because they are not behind on their rent. It is absolutely backwards to suggest that tenants who have by all measures done what they are supposed to do, paying their rent on time each month amidst a global pandemic and economic recession, and are now facing homelessness during a surge in hospitalizations due to the highly infectious Delta variant. This is why we need the CEEFPA eviction protections in place, in addition to the eviction protections attached to ERAP.”