The Legal Aid Society filed this class action lawsuit against the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) for its failure to provide heat and hot water to hundreds of thousands of NYCHA tenants between October 1, 2017, and May 31, 2018. NYCHA conceded that 80 percent of its housing units experienced heat and/or hot water outages during the time-period. These tenants were left to fend for themselves, and many resorted to warming their homes by means of stoves and/or space heaters, dangerous remedies that put them at heightened risk of carbon monoxide poisoning and fire. In New York City, landlords are required to provide heat and hot water to tenants, and private landlords are subject to fines as much as $1,000 per day for repeated heat violations.

In 2018, a trial court granted NYCHA’s motion to dismiss our case. The First Department unanimously vacated its judgment, reinstating our cause of action for NYCHA’s breach of warranty of habitability, and granted our motion for certification of a damages class. On October 28, 2024, we entered into a settlement agreement which provided $5,000,000 in compensation to class members, distributed in the form of rent credits to current NYCHA tenants who were tenants of record during the 2017 – 2018 heating season and who had experienced at least one outage of heat and/or hot water outage that lasted 24 continuous hours or more. Learn more about the settlement here.