ANALYZING THE IMPACT OF NYC’S RIGHT TO COUNSEL LAWS ON RATES OF ILLEGAL EVICTION

In 2017, the City of New York began a five-year, staggered rollout
of its landmark Right to Counsel (RTC) legislation, providing free
legal representation to tenants facing eviction. While previous
studies suggest that RTC lowers eviction rates, stakeholders report
that landlords may continue to force tenants out through extralegal
means. Hypothesizing that RTC may have incentivized landlords
to avoid the court system, the Capstone team investigated rates of
attempted illegal eviction via utility shutoffs before and after the
RTC policy change. Using publicly available data from the NYC
Department of Housing Preservation and Development on utility
shutoff violations between 2013 and 2019 as a proxy for illegal
evictions, the team employed a Callaway & Sant’Anna multiperiod
difference-in-difference model to assess whether violation rates
changed significantly at the ZIP code or census tract level after
neighborhoods gained access to RTC. The final report details the
team’s findings, with conclusions tailored to the current push for
statewide expansion of the program.