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.