Tenant's Rights Hotline
The Hotline is free and open to any tenant living in New York City
Office
315 Flatbush Ave., PMB 411
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Our hotline is staffed by volunteer members. Sometimes we are forced to close on short notice if our volunteers are unexpectedly unable to come in.
Become a volunteer telephone counselor!
We’re always looking for new volunteers to help on our hotline! We will provide training and guidance – no experience is necessary, only your willingness to learn, and your availability during our hotline’s open hours. Contact us today1
What services are provided when you call?
We can give brief answers to your rights as a tenant, and explain your options for dealing with a housing situation.
Common questions relate to:
- getting repairs from negligent landlords
- getting adequate heat in the winter months
- dealing with the threat of eviction
- questions about leases and lease renewals
- legal rent increases for rent-regulated apartments
We can also provide referrals to agencies, community organizing groups, and tenant lawyers – either free legal services or private-practice lawyers, depending on your situation.
What services we don’t do provide
We cannot give legal advice – we’re trained volunteers, not lawyers. While we can explain your rights and options under the law, we cannot advise you on how to proceed in a legal case. However, we may be able to refer you to help with finding a lawyer.
We don’t give rental assistance or provide help with back-rent. We’re a grassroots membership organization, and we don’t have the funds for this. However, we may be able to refer you to an agency that can assist with this, if you just can’t afford the rent.
We cannot advocate on your behalf nor do we have any extra pull with city or state agencies. We can give you pointers on how to be an effective advocate for yourself.
We cannot help you locate new housing or place you in housing – for that,
check our website here.
Do you offer legal advice over the phone?
No. Our tenants’ rights telephone counselors are trained volunteers, not lawyers. We can tell you about your rights as a tenant, your options for solving a problem with your housing situation, and strategies for how to assert your rights. We can educate you about the laws that exist to protect you. However, we cannot advise you about how to proceed on legal matters. Only lawyers are legally permitted – and qualified – to do that.
While we do not offer legal advice, most tenants who call us don’t need that – they simply need to know their rights, and strategies for enforcing them. In cases where tenants need legal representation, we may be able to refer tenants to organizations that have lawyers, or to private tenant attorneys.
Many tenants who need free legal assistance are unable to obtain it. While New York City now has a “Right to Counsel” for low-income people facing eviction, there is no right under the law to a free lawyer as there is for defendants in criminal cases. Met Council on Housing is fighting to change this and has won expanded access with the “Right to Counsel” program, but currently, the government does not provide more support. Some nonprofit organizations offer free legal assistance to tenants, but since funds are limited, not all people in need are served, and many are turned away. In New York City’s Housing Courts, almost 50% of tenants facing eviction do not have legal representation, while 98% of landlords do.
Met Council on Housing’s tenants’ right telephone hotline is a unique service in that we offer free support to tenants who need to advocate for themselves. Many organizations that provide legal assistance refer tenants to us whom they’re unable to represent. Our hotline is very unique – it’s one of the only places where New York City tenants can call for a simple question about their housing issue and get an answer. And we operate the only hotline that can connect tenants in need to organizing efforts to improve policies and affect change at the structural level.
This is all supported primarily by membership dues and donations from people like you who believe in fighting for affordable housing rights for all.
Please note that our telephone counselors are members of Met Council on Housing who volunteer their time on an ongoing basis for free because they care deeply about helping tenants in need.
Our volunteers stay up-to-date on the latest developments in housing to provide the best information possible. While we’re not lawyers, the complexity of housing law in New York City is such that lawyers who practice other areas of law are unfamiliar with many tenant issues. Many of Met Council on Housing’s volunteers are among the most knowledgeable people on tenants’ rights issues in New York City. When we can’t answer a question or be of assistance, and when we are difficult to reach, we appreciate your understanding.
I keep calling during open hours, but I can’t get through! Why are the phones so busy?
Our free tenants’ rights telephone hotline is a unique service in New York City. No city agency provides a similar service, so we have a tremendous number of calls. The demand for our services is very high, and we often have more calls come through than we have volunteers able to:
Tips on getting through:
- Our busiest time is when the hotline first opens at 1:30 p.m. Dozens of people try to reach us all at once. Try calling after 4pm, when the hotline is typically slower.
- If you can’t get through, wait 5 minutes and call back later.
- Mondays are our busiest day – and the hardest to get through.
- Don’t wait until the last minute to call us! If you’ve been offered a lease you don’t understand, faced an obstacle getting a repair made, suffered a night without heat, fallen behind in the rent, or were given papers to show up in court, call us as soon as you can. That way, if our hotline is closed, or if you can’t get through the first time, you can try back later!
Why doesn’t Met Council on Housing do call-backs about housing questions?
It’s a matter of capacity – we’re doing the best we can on limited resources. Since this is a volunteer-staffed hotline, we always need volunteers!
When we tried doing call-backs in the past, by the time we returned the call, many people had already tried the hotline at a later point and got their questions answered.
End the Tenant Blacklist!
For years, New York’s housing courts have been selling the data of tenants who are taken to court by their landlords. The information is used to create “tenant screening reports,” which are sold to landlords to evaluate prospective new tenants. The reports are better known as the tenant “blacklist,” because when landlords find out that a tenant has been in housing court, no matter the reason, the tenant is usually denied the apartment she is applying for. Because of the blacklist, tenants are punished for:
- Legally withholding rent to get repairs that landlords refuse to make
- Defending themselves in eviction cases that are brought through no fault of their own
- Defending against frivolous claims made by their landlord
- Having a similar name as another tenant who was in housing court
Concern about ending up on the blacklist also causes many tenants to avoid housing court at all costs – discouraging many from exercising their legal rights.
What is Met Council on Housing doing to end the Tenant Blacklist?
The Metropolitan Council on Housing and the National Lawyers Guild’s New York City Housing Committee are joining forces to bring a federal civil-rights suit against the New York State court system, seeking to block the sale of Housing Court data that is used to create these blacklists. We are seeking potential plaintiffs for this case.
We are currently looking for plaintiffs for this case who meet the criteria below:
Have You Been Harmed By The Tenant Blacklist?
Have you been taken to housing court by a New York City landlord, and were you later turned down for a different apartment that you applied for, and do you believe that you qualified for the apartment you applied for – and that you had good credit and enough income to afford the rent?
Has The Tenant Blacklist Discouraged You From Asserting Your Rights?
Has concern for ending up on the tenant blacklist caused you to decide not to defend yourself in an eviction case? (You moved, settled, or paid rent you didn’t owe, in order to avoid going to court for a case you may have won.) or:
Have you received a notice of non-renewal or notice of termination of your lease, and are now deciding whether to fight the owner’s claims and risk winding up on the tenant blacklist?
| DAY | OPEN HOURS |
|---|---|
| Monday | 1:30pm-8pm |
| Wednesday | 1:30pm-8pm |
| Friday | 1:30pm-5pm |
| We're closed on holidays and when staffing is unexpectedly limited. |
Join Us Today!
Help us achieve our goal of a city where safe, decent, affordable housing is a right, not a privilege.
Contact Us
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