Right to Counsel Coalition Launches Campaign for Winter Eviction Moratorium to Protect New Yorkers During Coldest Months

New York - The Right to Counsel Coalition today announced the launch of a statewide campaign to pass a Winter Eviction Moratorium in New York State. The legislation is designed to keep tenants housed and out of shelters during the coldest and most dangerous months of the year. This launch comes at a moment of growing urgency as New Yorkers are dying from exposure during extreme winter weather.

“Deadly winter storms are now commonplace across New York. From Buffalo’s 2022 storm, which killed more than 34 people, to at least 14 deaths in NYC this year, we know how dangerous winter weather has become. And yet, every year, we continue to evict people into it. This is not new, and it is not acceptable. The people most impacted by evictions are Black mothers and their children – families we are forcing into the bitter cold and an already overcrowded shelter system. The best way to prevent homelessness and death is to keep people housed. A winter eviction moratorium is ultimately about health and safety: courts remain open, landlords can sue, rent is still owed, but marshal evictions pause during the most dangerous months. With increasingly unpredictable weather – warm one day, freezing the next – evicting someone in the winter still leaves them homeless when the cold hits. A winter moratorium makes clear that winter evictions are a public health and moral crisis, and that protecting lives must come first.” – Malika Conner, Director of the Right to Counsel Coalition 

Sponsored by Assemblymember Anna Kelles and Senator Jabari Brisport, the bill (A.10121 / S.9090) would automatically pause the execution of residential evictions statewide between November 1 and April 15, when eviction and homelessness pose the greatest risk to health and life.

“A winter eviction moratorium could have prevented the fourteen deaths we’ve seen in NYC this past week. With extreme cold and snow making it harder—especially for people with mobility challenges—to get to court, winter evictions are a life-and-death issue. Elders, youth, veterans, and mothers with children are hit hardest. This bill doesn’t take away landlords’ rights—it simply gives tenants time and stability during the most dangerous months of the year.” - Randy Dillard (CASA Leader & RTC Steering Committee Member)

Landlords are currently trying to evict more than 175,000 New Yorkers, while at least 100,000 people across the state are already unhoused, many living in shelters or on the streets. Winter evictions push families into homelessness at a time when exposure to extreme cold, overcrowded shelters, and infectious disease can be deadly, especially for children, elders, and people with disabilities. Just this week, multiple deaths linked to freezing temperatures were confirmed in New York City, with exposure playing a role in the majority of cases. 

The Winter Eviction Moratorium would:

• Pause evictions during New York’s coldest months while maintaining tenants’ and landlords’ rights

• Protect tenants from harassment and illegal evictions during the moratorium

• Allow tenants in non-payment cases to remain housed if they resolve their rent arrears during the moratorium period 

• Require landlords to notify tenants of the Winter Eviction Moratorium in eviction court filings
   

Evictions disproportionately harm low-income women, families with children, survivors of domestic violence, and Black and brown communities. In New York City alone, families with children accounted for nearly half of attempted evictions in 2022, despite representing just over a quarter of households.

“Evictions in winter mean removing kids from their schools, exposing elderly and disabled tenants to extreme health threats and crowding people into the already at capacity city shelter system. No great argument is needed after 14 people died in the freezing cold outside over the past two weeks.” - Jenny Laurie, Housing Court Answers

Winter evictions are especially dangerous. People forced from their homes during cold weather face increased risk of hypothermia, illness, and death, while shelter systems remain overcrowded and strained. Climate change-driven extreme weather events only heighten these risks.

“The Winter Eviction Moratorium is a safeguard to prevent families from being displaced during the most dangerous months of the year. Evictions for nonpayment during extreme cold increase the risk of homelessness, hypothermia, and reliance on emergency shelter systems that are already stretched beyond capacity. While many people assume winter protections already exist, there is no automatic winter eviction moratorium in New York. This bill provides a temporary, targeted pause that prioritizes public health and safety, while giving tenants and landlords time to pursue rental assistance, repayment plans, or mediation. Preventing avoidable homelessness and wintertime deaths is not only compassionate policy, it is fiscally responsible and essential to community stability.” - NY Assembly Member Anna Kelles

"The cruelty and danger of forcing families out of their homes in the brutal winter cold has to be stopped. New Yorkers will fight to protect our neighbors — and together we will win.” - NY State Senator Jabari Brisport

Research has shown that eviction moratoria keep people housed, reduce homelessness, protect public health, and stabilize communities. By preventing displacement during the school year, the Winter Eviction Moratorium would also help keep children in their schools and minimize the trauma that eviction inflicts on families. At a time when lives are being lost to the cold, keeping people housed is an urgent public health and safety imperative.

“As both a tenant and a community advocate, I have not only seen the harm caused when people are forced into housing court without protection or legal representation, I have lived it. Every day, tenants walk into court scared, unrepresented, and overwhelmed, while landlords arrive with attorneys and use the system to their advantage. Housing court has become an eviction pipeline where tenants are expected to fail. This is not justice, it is displacement disguised as due process.” - Stephanie Diaz (CASA Leader & RTC Member)

As evictions across New York State rise and their impacts continue to devastate renter communities, it is imperative that the State take action to protect New Yorkers. The Winter Eviction Moratorium is the first step towards keeping New Yorkers safely housed. In addition to enacting the Winter Eviction Moratorium, the Right to Counsel Coalition is calling on Governor Hochul and the State Legislature to expand Right to Counsel Statewide and pass Clean Hands legislation to ensure tenants have a fair fight against unjust evictions,

“No one should go hungry, no one should be homeless, and no one should be evicted in freezing temperatures in a place called America.” - Cheryl Cloud (HOPE Steering Committee Member & Right to Counsel Coalition Member)

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