Over 100K NYers Are Forced From Homes Each Year, Research Finds

NEW YORK — Upheavals such as evictions force more than 100,000 New York City renters to move each year, and thousands more find new homes because they cannot afford where they live, new research shows.

The findings came in a report released Thursday by the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University and the Robin Hood Foundation, an anti-poverty nonprofit. The results are based on the two institutions' Poverty Tracker, a regular survey of more than 4,000 people.

Some 56,000 families in the city have to leave their homes each year because they have been evicted or their building has been foreclosed, sold or condemned, researchers estimate. Compared to other renters, those families are more likely to be poor, spend a high share of their income on rent and face a hardship such as having utilities cut off or running out of food, the report says.

"Our results show that those who suffer forced relocation often face a host of challenges before being forced out of their homes, including poverty, material hardship, rent burden, and mental health issues," Sophie Collyer, a Columbia research analyst, said in a statement. "We also find that they are pushed into higher poverty areas, further concentrating poverty and disadvantage in already challenged neighborhoods."

The figures illustrate the circumstances that force New Yorkers to find new homes as lawmakers in Albany debate reforms to the state's rent regulations, which are set to expire in June.

Aside from those forced to move, another roughly 60,000 New Yorkers moved because they found a more affordable apartment, the report says. Those people account for 34 percent of the households who voluntarily move, according to the report.

Evictions alone account for more than two thirds of the forced moves, the report says — some 26,000 families reported that they were formally evicted while another 12,000 reported being informally evicted.

Evicted New Yorkers and those who moved to more affordable homes had something in common, the report shows: Both groups were more likely to live in a high-poverty neighborhood after moving.

Just 10 percent of those who were evicted lived in poor neighborhoods before their move but that rate more than doubled to 26 percent after the moves, researchers found. For New Yorkers who found a more affordable apartment, the probability rose to 40 percent from 24 percent, the report says.

The study also compared moving patterns in rent-stabilized and rent-controlled apartments — which are governed by rules restricting rent increases — to those in unregulated apartments.

While regulated apartments saw a smaller share of tenants move, 22 percent of those who did move were forced to, while that was the case for just 15 percent of unregulated tenants who moved, the report shows.

That's a factor that lawmakers examining the state's rent stabilization laws should consider, the report says. Advocates pushing for tenant-friendly reforms have raised concerns about landlords forcing out residents so they can reap higher rents.

"We see clearly in the data that policies have a critical role to play, and we must do more to strengthen affordability protections and access to legal counsel," Wes Moore, the Robin Hood Foundation's CEO, said in a statement.