Shared bathroom on the fifth floor of the Snowdon Apartments. Credit: Photo by Mike Greenlar | Central Current

For the past year, Syracuse tenants have been suing their landlords to ensure their homes are habitable as part of a tenant protections bill passed by Albany lawmakers in recent years.

And while the bill, titled the Tenant Dignity and Safe Housing Act, has yielded success in getting repairs ordered by a Syracuse City Court judge, advocates for renters say it hasn’t yet reached its full potential in helping improve the conditions of Syracuse’s housing crisis. 

Housing advocates say the Tenant Dignity and Safe Housing Act is part of a toolkit that could help tenants remain in safe homes at a time when the city has a shortage of housing in good habitable condition, a lack of options for tenants to move to, glaring issues of affordability, and all-time-high numbers of people without a home. 

To do that, the bill would have to be paired up with stronger protections against evictions, said Sal Curran. Curran is the executive director of the Volunteer Lawyers Project. They believe stronger protections would limit landlords from filing retaliatory evictions that deter renters from demanding due repairs. 

These protections are found in the local “good cause eviction” ordinance that has lain dormant in the city’s council chambers since February.

“Tenants are afraid to file [a petition] because they’re afraid that there’ll be repercussions by the landlord,” Curran said. 

The Volunteer Lawyers Project has helped tenants file at least 30 petitions demanding repairs. Conditions for their clients are often egregious, Curran said. The Volunteer Lawyers Project is still working to catalog its petitions but generally gets tenants favorable outcomes, they said. 

Curran said tenants filing these legal actions, often referred to as “7D” petitions, are living in squalid homes, inhabiting spaces flooded by sewage backup, dealing with vermin infestations, and enduring the elements due to a lack of proper heating and cooling fixtures.

“Good cause” would make “7D” petitions even stronger, Curran said. 

Assemblymember Bill Magnarelli, the key sponsor of the Tenant Dignity and Safe Housing in the New York State Assembly disagrees. Magnarelli said he’d rather support amendments to the bill that address landlord retaliation before he advocates for “good cause.” 

“If some judge says the law doesn’t do what I think it does,” Magnarelli said, “I’ll fix it.” 

“Good cause” was passed in the state’s budget in April 2024 and allowed municipalities around New York to opt into the bill. Close to a dozen localities, including the cities of Ithaca, Albany, and Poughkeepsie have adopted “good cause.” The bill allows tenants to challenge in court unjust evictions and unreasonably high rent hikes. 

In the context of tenants seeking a habitable home, Curran said, “good cause” would allow tenants to request repairs, file legal actions to compel landlords to fix habitability issues, and prevent landlords from engaging in a retaliatory eviction.

Curran said some landlords currently do that by simply not renewing the tenants’ lease, or attempting to evict tenants without a lease, living month-to-month — a very common arrangement for tenants in the city, Curran added. 

Despite the 7D petition’s inability to stop the flow of evictions — there are typically more than 2,500 in any given year — Tysha Martin, the director of community engagement at CNY Fair Housing, said the bill empowers tenants. Martin has worked with tenants filing 7D petitions.

“This is the first tool that I’ve had to use that actually levels the playing field,” Martin said. 

The Tenant Dignity and Safe Housing Act went into effect in December of 2023, allowing tenants to sue landlords for code violations and habitability issues. 

Through the law, judges can order repairs, financial compensation or rent reduction for tenants depending on the case. Tenants can submit reports of housing code violations found during inspections performed by Syracuse’s Division of Code Enforcement and photographic and video evidence to build their case with the judge. 

Cases related to 7D petitions are handled in Syracuse by City Court Judge Shadia Tadros. 

Eligible tenants must have a lease that allows them to stay at the property and must have lived in the property for at least 30 consecutive days.

The law also created template forms to facilitate tenants’ submission of petitions to the court.

To begin the process, tenants fill out a petition form detailing their monthly rent, the hazardous housing conditions they are bringing charges against, and what remedy they seek from the court. 

Typically, landlords don’t receive rent if the judge rules in favor of tenants and demands repairs are made to their property. Judges may also ask landlords to reduce the amount of owed rent based on the poor housing conditions.

Curran recommends tenants prepare materials like photos, code reports, and receipts for materials used by the tenant to repair their home so that their case is strong before filing the petition.

One of the bill’s most impactful effects is that it has allowed tenants to remain in their home while repairs take place, Curran said. Judge Tadros, Curran added, has typically allowed eviction filings against tenants who owe rent to lay still until the 7D case is resolved. 

“It gives the landlords a real incentive to make the repairs,” Curran said. “We’ve actually seen repairs being made, and these are situations where the landlord has had multiple code violations. So it can work, but it is not fast.”

Despite securing repairs for tenants, Curran said the potential for their landlord to file a retaliatory eviction often deters tenants from acting. There are laws barring landlords from discriminating against tenants, but the onus is on tenants to prove they are the subject of discrimination — a tall order without “good cause,” Curran said.

“With good reason, tenants are afraid to even call codes. They’re not going to be bringing lawsuits against their landlord,” Curran said. 

Prior to the passing of the Tenant Dignity and Safe Housing Act, the only recourse tenants had to pressure neglectful landlords was withholding rent, according to Curran. 

Most often, they added, the first opportunity to voice habitability concerns to a judge would be through retaliatory actions the landlord brought against non-paying tenants: an eviction proceeding. 

Martin said she is currently working to file a 7D petition with a tenant who has withheld several months of rent after dealing with brown water, sewage backups and a lack of proper heating in her apartment. 

Though the tenant hasn’t been served an eviction notice, Martin believes these missed payments may put her at risk of being displaced — a concern that initially kept her from pursuing the lawsuit.

“She’s concerned right now,” Martin said. “When she finally called me, she was like: ‘I’ve had your name on my refrigerator for three months now’.”

The lack of repairs can bring severe consequences. Curran detailed an example of tenants without heat running space heaters throughout their apartment all winter.

“Which is super dangerous and leads to fires and deaths,” Curran added.

For Magnarelli, who passed the bill after it was written by Syracuse-based housing advocates, the answer to stopping retaliatory evictions would be two-pronged: amending the Tenant Dignity and Safe Housing Act and building more housing. 

He said he rejects “good cause” as a solution because of the provision in the bill that would allow tenants to challenge rent increases above 10% of the yearly rent or the inflation index, whichever is lower. Magnarelli characterized this provision as “telling landlords what they can charge.”

“I don’t think you have to jump to the other thing,” Magnarelli said, referring to “good cause.” “I think that’s counterproductive.”

The solution to housing issues, Magnarelli said, is building thousands more housing units. 

“And if you can’t get near that, then you’re blowing it completely,” he said. “You’re not even in the ball game.”

Ultimately, the bill also helps dispel misconceptions about the tenant-landlord relationship, Martin said. She emphasized that the bill aptly includes the word “dignity” in the name, which is ultimately what renters are seeking to reclaim requesting repairs. 

It gives them dignity in a power dynamic where they otherwise haven’t had it, Martin said.

“In working with tenants over time, for the most case, tenants just want a good, safe, healthy, affordable place to live,” she said. “So when you hear of cases in which landlords are trying to evict somebody or not renew a lease because somebody is a problem tenant, it’s, for the most case, just because they want a habitable place to live.”

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Eddie Velazquez is a Syracuse journalist covering economic justice in the region. He is focused on stories about organized labor, and New York's housing and childhood lead poisoning crises. You can follow...

Luisana Ortiz is a senior at Syracuse University studying Magazine, News and Digital Journalism and Applied Data Analytics. Originally from Miami, Florida, she is interested in covering stories about—and...