Who we are: The Right to Counsel NYC Coalition is a tenant led broad based coalition that formed in 2014 to disrupt Housing Court as a center of displacement and stop the eviction crisis that has threatened our families, our neighborhoods and our homes for too long. Our Coalition is made up of tenants, organizers, advocates, legal services organizations and more! Our work is rooted in principles of equity, dignity, humanity, diversity and justice. After a hard fought, 3 year grassroots campaign, we won and became the first city in the nation to establish a Right to Counsel for tenants facing eviction. Our campaign has inspired a movement across the country.

Our Mission and What We Do: We believe Right to Counsel isn’t just about ensuring tenants have attorneys in housing court. It’s about fighting to reclaim our city and our communities, to keep people in their homes and to de-normalize the violence of evictions. We are building campaigns for an eviction-free NYC and ultimately for a right to housing. Because our work is grounded in a history of tenant organizing and a belief that housing is a human right, we are now working to ensure that the Right to Counsel law is implemented in a way that upholds the right, that builds tenant power and that transforms the nature of the courts, furthering the dignity and humanity of every tenant. We are running direct action campaigns against NYC’s worst evictors, changing the laws to stop evictions, supporting the development of passionate and zealous attorneys committed to tenant power, and expanding and strengthening Right to Counsel so that it extends to all tenants.