Tenant Defense teams in each borough office prevent homelessness among the city’s most vulnerable families and individuals, including representing clients facing eviction in nonpayment and holdover proceedings in housing court. The team also represents clients in appellate courts and in administrative proceedings.

Through this work, we keep low-income New Yorkers in affordable housing, get unsafe housing violations corrected, obtain and preserve rent subsidies for clients, fight illegal deregulation of buildings and apartments as well as rent overcharges and prevent evictions. Since 2017, Legal Aid has served as one of the primary Right-to-Counsel providers, representing low-income tenants facing eviction in the city through the Universal Access program.

The Housing Justice Unit-Group Advocacy works with eligible tenant groups, housing advocates, HDFC coop boards, and groups of shareholders, to promote and preserve affordable housing, improve housing conditions and prevent harassment and displacement throughout NYC’s rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods.

The Public Housing Unit continues to build on the decades-long work that The Legal Aid Society has been doing throughout the five boroughs on behalf of New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) public housing residents.

A dedicated unit of attorneys, supervisors, and paralegals who provide rapid, high-impact legal assistance to New Yorkers who have been evicted or are facing eviction within 24 hours. The team expands Legal Aid’s capacity to intervene in the most urgent housing crises, protecting vulnerable families from displacement and homelessness.

The team files emergency court papers to halt evictions, prevents landlords from renting out units while a case is pending, stops the removal of a tenant’s belongings, works to restore tenants to their homes whenever possible, and even covers rental arrears.

Our dynamic team of housing advocates and Legal Aid Society (LAS) attorneys work tirelessly to identify and resolve issues related to housing subsidies. Each advocate is extensively trained in the major subsidy programs that our clients rely on, including the Family Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (FHEPS), Emergency Housing Vouchers (EHV), Section 8, and City Family Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (CityFHEPS).

The Legal Aid Society has played a pivotal role in shaping case law and policy around these critical programs. When problems arise, our advocates intervene to help clients retain or restore their subsidies—whether through administrative hearings or in Housing Court—ensuring that families can remain stably housed.

In collaboration with the Law Reform Unit, we build upon the needs of individual clients to make systemic changes through litigation and advocacy that benefit large numbers of clients with similar legal problems. Through class actions and other affirmative litigation, we seek to enforce the rights of many similarly situated persons or to establish new legal rights.