Monthly evictions in NYC are at their highest rate in years

Evicted New Yorkers are getting the boot at rates not seen in years.

New York City marshals are averaging 1,500 evictions a month this year, Gothamist reported.

The last time this many locks were changed was in 2018, when marshals carried out roughly 1,666 monthly evictions. 

At least 11,253 households across the five boroughs were evicted by marshals between Jan. 1 and Aug. 15 of this year, according to data from the city’s Department of Investigation. Evictions previously slowed during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent eviction freeze, but rates have been on the rise since 2022 when the moratorium was lifted. 

Eviction proceedings can take months or even years, and less than 10% of landlords actually get the formal go-ahead from a judge to kick their tenants out.

Although completed evictions are up, the number of cases filed by landlords has actually decreased. Initiated proceedings dropped from 10,500 per month in 2024 to 9,531 per month this year, according to state court data. 

Landlords like Ann Korchak attributed this year’s uptick to understaffed housing courts making progress on backlogged pandemic-era cases. Korchak, also a spokesperson for the group Small Property Owners of New York, called evictions “a last resort.”

“Everyone wants to live harmoniously but we need the revenue to run the properties,” Korchak told Gothamist. 

Increased activity in New York’s housing courts are keeping the city’s 29 marshals busy. City marshals — officials hired by landlords to carry out the grunt work of evictions — took in nearly $20.5 million last year, according to a revenue report. Their combined profit was up from $19.5 million in 2023 and $14 million in 2019.

Evictions are carried out across all five boroughs, although the majority of cases filed since 2021 have been concentrated in The Bronx. More than 9% of households in The Bronx received court notices last year, Gothamist reported.

The increased rate of evictions comes at the same time that the pace of net job growth in New York City has all but ceased, the New York Times recently reported. The Robin Hood Foundation warned last month that one in four low-income New Yorkers can’t reliably cover rent.

“For a lot of renters, they don’t have much in the way of personal savings and one missed paycheck, a layoff, an unexpected expense can be the precipitating factor for an eviction case,” Peter Hepburn of Princeton University’s Eviction Lab told Gothamist.

Experts say safety nets for tenants, like the city’s right-to-counsel program, help keep New Yorkers in their homes, but protections can be uneven and programs remain understaffed.