For the Many & HVJC Host ‘Know Your Rights’ Training

On Nov. 14, Ulster County-based grassroots organization For the Many  hosted the Hudson Valley Justice Center for a “Know Your Rights” informational training on tenants’ rights in New York. Held a few months after the Good Cause Eviction (GCE) law’s passage in the Village of New Paltz, the meeting served as a community outreach to help better understand growing concerns over the Hudson Valley housing crisis.

The GCE state law went into effect on April 20, with the goal of protecting New York tenants from unjust rent increases and both retaliatory and discriminative evictions. With these baseline protections in place, landlords cannot end a tenancy without justifiable cause, allowing tenants to take such evictions to court.

In conjunction with For the Many, representatives Allie Detinger and Victor Guzman of the Hudson Valley Justice Center (HVJC) were present at the training, having prepared a detailed presentation outlining the protections New York tenants are entitled to under the GCE law. Detinger and Guzman are both attorneys from the HVJC who have spent the past few years focusing on tenants’ rights and various housing-adjacent legal issues, including domestic violence and family law. 

Detinger, who exclusively represents tenants, explained the challenges tenants often encounter when faced with issues such as rent increases, LLC loopholes and eviction notices from their landlords. Rent increases in particular have become a growing issue in New York State in recent years. Under the GCE law, rent increases are capped at 8.82% plus inflation, with a maximum cap of 10%. “Tenants have the ability to challenge such increases in the court of law,” she noted.

“Rent increases without a provision would be an enormous loophole,” Detinger explained. “The amount that you can challenge the rent increase by is linked to the consumer price index, which means it’s linked to inflation.” 

The legislative process for the GCE law — specifically local opt-in — is a key force in driving the passage of the bill in cities across the state. However, the process to pass GCE in places like New Paltz proved to be difficult due to the Hudson Valley’s current housing crisis. Gentrification, soaring rents and fewer job prospects have fueled this growing crisis.

“[Gentrification], particularly in the Hudson Valley, has been devastating for the last 20 years. But specifically post-COVID, [there was] just a huge influx of folks moving upstate. Wealthy folks buying up homes,” said For the Many student organizer Daniel Carmel. “Folks that were gentrified out of Brooklyn 10 years ago are now getting gentrified out of these areas. And they’re wondering where on earth it ends … where is their refuge?”

Carmel, who worked as a teacher before becoming For the Many’s organizer, watched many families priced out of their homes over the years. Noting the importance of the GCE within these struggles, Carmel said, “It’s not a radical law, as we saw. It’s basic protections. We’ve got a long way to go, but this puts some power back in the hands of tenants to defend themselves and to stay in their homes.”