Inside the Gallows of Housing Court 👨🏽‍⚖️

What would you do if you lost your home?

How would you respond if you and your family were suddenly uprooted, forced to abandon your home, and relocate to a new one within 30 days? Which thoughts and emotions would cross your mind? How would you feel? If you did happen to find a new place to live, would you be able to afford it?

These are the questions that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers face every year when they are evicted from their homes. A judge seals their fate, the sole arbiter of the troubling outcomes often seen in housing court.

I explore the harsh realities of survival as a New York City tenant in the piece below — one you won’t want to miss. After that, premium subscribers will enjoy a few pieces of motivational content to wrap up summer and prepare for the grind of the coming months.

Inside the Gallows of Housing Court 👨🏽‍⚖️

I recently paid a visit to New York City’s infamous housing court.

The events and emotions I describe below are visceral and true. I can only interpret what others are feeling through empathy and understanding of circumstance, but only God knows the extent of their suffering.

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Despair and uncertainty paint a person’s face in a haunting manner. It’s a look you know when you see it.

For the hundreds of thousands who face housing instability, they wear this numb coating with indifference. The fear has mostly passed, but the pain has yet to come. Fate still remains. What will happen to them and their homes?

• The city has over 60,000 people living in homeless shelters, and many more are on the brink of homelessness due to rising housing costs and a shortage of affordable housing units. 

• Approximately 50% of the 2.5 million renters in NYC are considered cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent

In housing court, New Yorkers of all shades and ages are reduced to a case number, their homes just one ruling away from obscurity. It’s an overcrowded and broken system, deprioritizing justice in favor of corruption and bribery. Humanity takes a back seat in this place. 

Hopeful, delusional, and grim possibilities run through the minds of the defendants as their case approaches judgment. 

“Does it all end here? Do I have a chance? What final move can I make to sway my favor?”

Boxed in by bleak brick panels and dimly lit fluorescent walls, the hollow feeling of being alone and vulnerable grows deeper. They are in the heart of the beast, preparing for a moment of good fate or condemnation. After this, life will never be the same.

More questions arise. 

“I wonder what worries my wife in this moment. Does she extend grace to me? Does she uphold faith? Or doubts?” Tensions rise. The courtroom is silent, as always. The judge emerges in silence, floating toward the stand in a cloaking black robe as if from thin air. 

Desperation.

“What if the judge feels sympathy? I should put on a smile. No, I saw that look he gave me. No. I won’t get any sympathy from him. My frown is more true. I shall be true. Hell, he’s probably feeling the same misery I feel.”

Just one swing of the gavel, and poof. It’s all gone. Their homes and their realities dissolved as if stricken by a natural disaster. Now what?

Given thirty days or less to seek and inhabit a new home, these New Yorkers are in survival mode. Fight or flight. In the already competitive and unaffordable housing market, the stakes have climbed impossibly higher.

Imagine having to scrap together what little you have in possessions and resources, then scrambling to find a new home, negotiating and relocating, all while the merciless buzzsaw of homelessness inches closer and closer by the minute. 

If you’re lucky, a court-appointed lawyer is assigned to your case, and will hear out your story. In miserable cubicles finished with thin coats of paint, overworked attorneys frantically scribble notes about your story. Who do you live with? How do you receive income? Do you have a place to go?  

Along the hallways are dozens of other lawyers – mostly representing landlords and corporate entities. With pricey loafers and designer bags at their feet, these are a more cheerful bunch. A Monday in housing court is just another paycheck. They’re used to the gore, and have a sense of pride in securing their clients a victory – no matter the expense. 

After all, those in housing court are basically criminals. They’re squatters, illegals, or thieves – if they can’t afford their rent, they should find somewhere else to live. In the minds of landlords and their loyal attorneys, their eviction work is fair and just. 

When I speak to tenants facing eviction or hefty legal fees outside the hearing rooms, they’re noticeably shaken or defensive. Their backs are against the wall, and the cold breath of crippling loss creeps closer.

In New York, we’re all playing this game of tag with poverty. We work to stave it off, and if we can make the time, we socialize, move, and eat healthy to keep death off our backs, too. But both of these efforts are only possible if we have a home – a physical address that lends us the security of permanence – even if it is just a space we only temporarily inhabit.

This way of life isn’t exactly new (think of serfdom in medieval Europe) but it is strange and it is cruel. As rent and the cost of living in New York balloon to dizzying highs, those who cannot afford the ride will be left in the rubble.

Considering the 2.5 million renters in a cash-strapped city with a housing and migrant crisis on its hands, something will soon have to give. The center cannot hold; the brakes of this impossibly large machine have broken off and the final destination is unknown. 

No matter your connection to the machine – we are all caught in it some way or another – the commonality is ourselves. Each other. People. The housing crisis isn’t a crisis because homes are expensive, it is a crisis because people are suffering. The dismal rituals of housing court are tragic because they are the final act of a struggle, gasps for air punctuated with suffocating finality. 

The beauty of a tragedy is that signals the end of an agonizing chapter, paving the way for renewal. Scars and ashes become hallowed lessons and virtues of resilience. It’s a cycle that the working class of New York City knows well.

From ruin, people will rise again.

End of Summer Wisdoms 🧠

The comedown of summer highs culminates during this final, buzzy period of Labor Day Weekend, foreshadowing months of hard work ahead.

Whether that notion excites or places fear within you, the collection of philosophies below are sure to carry you through the finish line.