The Legal Aid Society is hailing a decision by the Supreme Court not to hear a challenge to New York’s rent stabilization and tenant protection laws brought by a group of landlords.

The Court to decline to review three Second Circuit decisions dismissing lawsuits by landlord groups challenging New York’s long-standing Rent Stabilization Law (RSL) and Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (HSTPA).

Following the implementation of the HSTPA, landlord groups filed several lawsuits seeking to dismantle the HSTPA and RSL, arguing that the laws were unconstitutional.

Legal Aid, Legal Services NYC, and Selendy Gay PLLC successfully intervened in defense of the HSTPA and RSL on behalf of N.Y. Tenants and Neighbors, Community Voices Heard, and Coalition for the Homeless, which represent thousands of members who are rent-stabilized tenants and who stand to lose their homes if the landlord groups succeed. 

“Since 1969, New York’s Rent Stabilization Laws have protected millions of tenants, preserved affordable housing, and prevented mass displacement and homelessness in a city where the rents are the highest in the country and rising,” reads a statement from the organizations. “Today’s decision by the United States Supreme Court declining to review the Second Circuit’s well-reasoned dismissals of these lawsuits is in line with well-established precedent and puts an end to these cases attacking the legal protections depended upon by a million New York households amid an ongoing housing crisis.”