Evictrisk for 400K families in NYC

As many as 400,000 families across New York City could end up in Housing Court as the coronavirus takes a toll on people’s health and finances, according to a new study.

The legal actions are expected to take place as New York state’s eviction moratorium partially expires this week, and as negotiations in Washington over a new federal aid bill remain stalled.

“We have to prevent people from getting evicted,” said Judith Goldiner, the top attorney at the nonprofit Legal Aid Society.

“What are we going to do when 400,000 households lose their apartments and become homeless?”

A study by New York University’s Furman Center revealed there are 279,000 working-class families in the Big Apple who rent and had received the now-expired $600 weekly boost in unemployment benefits from the feds.

The study projected that another 111,000 blue-collar tenant households were hit hard financially by the virus but did not qualify for federal aid.

In addition, there are 14,000 families who were in the middle of eviction proceedings when the pandemic hit. Those cases were left in limbo when the courts shut down.

The cash crunch will likely hit households across the country as more than 30 million Americans are unemployed.

Politicians on Capitol Hill have been sparring over the future of the weekly unemployment boost.

Democrats in the House of Representatives passed a $3 trillion bill that would continue the payments, while Republicans in the Senate have proposed a new formula that would cut assistance to $200 a week before the transition to a payout plan that would offer 70 percent of prior earnings.