A New York Times article on efforts to fight the foreclosure crisis in Washington includes the perspective of South Brooklyn Legal Services ("SBLS," a program of Legal Services NYC) client Aoah Middleton. Ms. Middleton began missing payments on her mortgage in 2006 when her 5-year-old daughter was diagnosed with cancer. She spent a year trying to catch up, and could meet her obligations if her interest rate were reduced. Instead, her home is scheduled to be sold at a foreclosure auction this month. 

In a January 19th letter to the New York Law Journal, NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn calls upon the Manhattan Supreme Court to stop the New York City Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) from increasing rents for the New Yorkers who can least afford it. The City Council has joined South Brooklyn Legal Services (a program of Legal Services NYC) and the Legal Aid Society in a lawsuit against the RGB.

The NY Daily News'  Patrice O'Shaughnessy tells the story of a Legal Services NYC-Bronx client,  10-year old Jose Perez, whose mother is fighting to have him transferred out of a school where he's been targeted by bullies.

The Center for New York City Neighborhoods (CNYCN) has announced $464 thousand in grants to Legal Services NYC programs, to fund expanded foreclosure prevention legal services city-wide.

Over the past few years, investors have borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars to buy apartment building in working class neighborhoods through so called “predatory equity” financing schemes. The new owners’ financing plans require them to increase building revenues by evicting hundreds of low income tenants, deregulating their apartments, and renting to new tenants at market rates. Because tenants and their lawyers have fought back, eviction rates have been lower than planned and as a result many investors are having trouble paying their mortgages. The owners have been forced to increase eviction pressures, cut services, or fail to pay their loans. As a result, as many as 60,000 affordable housing units are at risk of being lost due to neglect and to bankruptcy.