The Legal Aid Society called for greater outreach to educate New Yorkers facing eviction due to COVID-19 related hardship, citing the low numbers of tenants who are submitting anti-eviction forms that seek to pause or prevent their eviction case until May 1.

Fewer than 2,300 forms – which protect tenants for a longer period of time than they are entitled to under the COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2020 – have been submitted, leading to questions over the effectiveness of the Court’s public outreach, as reported by Law360.

Ellen Davidson, a staff attorney at Legal Aid, said the lag in submissions may also be due in part to the challenges tenant attorneys are facing in advising their clients remotely during the pandemic.

“Some of our clients experience difficulties with literacy, so we might want to go through the form and really help them fill it out, which may involve some mailing back and forth,” Davidson explained. “I do think this points to a question of outreach and marketing. And I certainly hope whoever is designing the rent relief program is taking some time to figure out how to reach isolated communities.”

For more information about the New York State eviction moratorium and submitting a Declaration of Hardship, click here.