Tenant advocates rally on the steps of City Hall on Thursday, May 9, to advocate for 'good cause' eviction legislation as primary elections near. Credit: Eddie Velazquez | Central Current

A coalition of tenant advocates, labor leaders, and elected officials want to push the Syracuse Common Council and the city’s eventual new mayor to support “good cause” eviction. 

To do so, they are advocating Syracusans “vote like a tenant” in the upcoming primary election in June. Several council seats and the mayorship will be on the ballot this November. 

The advocacy campaign was unveiled at a rally Thursday outside city hall, with advocates from New York State Tenant Bloc, Syracuse Tenants Union, Families For Lead Freedom Now, the Service Employees International Union Local 1199 — which represents health care workers across New York — and the New York Civil Liberties Union.

At the rally, advocates say the campaign entails supporting candidates who are pro “good cause,” a statewide bill that municipalities can opt into. The local ordinance would give tenants the ability to guarantee their leases are renewed, and allow them to challenge unfair evictions, and unjustified rent hikes in court. 

The push from advocates — which includes on-the-ground canvassing, digital strategizing, and a mailer campaign — comes three months after the common council voted to withdraw “good cause” from their meeting agenda. The 5-4 vote was the last time the council has moved to consider “good cause.” 

Advocates say tenants in the city are struggling to cope with some of the highest year-over-year increases in rent in the country, as well the woes of living in housing in disrepair. “Good cause,” some say, would be direct relief to those issues. 

“In a city that’s again struggling with all these things, we sit in here with a common council who voted down ‘good cause,’ a common sense solution to one of the worst affordable housing prices that are seen across this country,” Deka Eysaman, a member of NYCLU, said at the rally. 

Eysaman and other advocates see the council’s move in February to withdraw the bill from a meeting agenda as equivalent to rejecting “good cause” altogether.

So far, 15 municipalities including Ithaca, Albany, and Rochester, have opted into the bill. 

Under “good cause,” tenants:

  • Could challenge evictions filed in court for reasons not stated in the lease agreement.
  • Could contest at eviction hearings rent increases above 10% of the yearly rent or 5% plus the rate of inflation, whichever is lower.
  • Would be allowed to renew their lease automatically if they are caught up on rent and have abided by the terms of their lease.

“This is a scandal that in a city with some of the highest rent hikes in the country that the city government would refuse to protect tenants,” NYS Tenant Bloc campaign organizer Genevieve Rand said at the rally. Tenant Bloc is a statewide nonprofit seeking to collectivize tenants and harness their voting and organizing power to improve housing conditions across the state.

Proponents of the bill have seen the upcoming primary as an opportunity to change that 5-4 calculus. Two at-large seats on the council, represented by Rasheada Caldwell and Amir Gethers, are up for re-election. Caldwell and Gether both voted to withdraw “good cause” at a Feb. 3 meeting. 

Timeline of stories about ‘good cause’ in Syracuse

The two challengers under the Democratic Party line, Hanah Ehrenreich and Hasahn Bloodworth, told Central Current they support the local ordinance. 

“It protects the 60%-plus families who rent and respects responsible landlords,” Ehrenreich told Central Current in a text message. “It is a simple and sensible way to keep families housed and protected from bad housing and abuse, and doesn’t create a burden on property owners.”

Caldwell and Gethers did not respond to a request for comment from Central Current by the time of publication. 

“It’s clear that these elected officials simply aren’t listening and would rather ignore the city’s housing crisis, so we are no longer asking nicely,” said AK Myers, a member of the Syracuse Tenants Union. “It’s time to vote like a tenant.”

Where do mayoral candidates stand on “good cause?”

The three frontrunners for the mayorship, all of whom will face-off in the Democratic Primary in June, have differing opinions on “good cause.” Chol Majok, a member of the council, wrote in an email statement he is for the bill with no caveats. 

Majok introduced a resolution in 2022, which the council at the time approved, requesting state officials pass “good cause.” The bill was first introduced in the State Legislature in 2019 and was the subject of many housing discussions during state budget negotiations throughout the years.

Majok also sponsored the local version of “good cause” last year. That bill has not been voted on yet.  

“Ultimately, it is a powerful tool for fostering housing stability for families and addressing the pressing issue of homelessness in Syracuse,” he wrote in the statement. 

Majok’s campaign did not respond to an inquiry made by Central Current about whether or not he would bring “good cause” to a vote in the council in the next month. 

Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens, also running for mayor, said she supports parts of “good cause.” Owens told Central Current she has concerns about the tenet of the bill that allows tenants to renew their lease automatically. Owens said she understands the utility of that provision in the bill in instances where landlords choose to not renew a lease in retaliation for a tenant calling code enforcement. 

“However, a blanket law that forces all landlords, regardless of how good they may be, to enter perpetually renewing contracts with their tenant does raise concerns for me,” Owens wrote in an email. She added that small, local landlords have raised this as a potential concern.

Owens echoed what advocates said at Thursday’s rally, saying that the council needs at least one more councilor in support of “good cause” to enact it. She also noted that a recent move by the common council to cut around $16 million in spending from Mayor Ben Walsh’s proposed 2025-26 budget was extremely disappointing. The council’s planned reductions include $600,000 to code enforcement, who inspect properties to ensure compliance with property standards. 

Council President Pro Tem Pat Hogan, another mayoral-hopeful, voted for withdrawing “good cause” from the agenda in February. He has been the most vocal detractor of the bill on the council. His campaign’s statement sent to Central Current did not reflect that level of opposition, but the councilmember said the city must get “good cause” right. 

“The current Common Council tabled the legislation because many questions remain unanswered,” he wrote in the statement. Hogan noted that the city has regulations meant to ensure housing habitability in city properties is upheld. 

“Before adding another layer of regulation, we need a comprehensive review of our current laws alongside the proposed Good Cause language so that we may ensure clarity for tenants and landlords alike,” he wrote. 

Hogan also said the council should hear input from renters and small, local landlords on the bill. Since the council started considering “good cause” last summer, three panels of experts have explained the bill during special sessions. One of those groups was a contingent of local landlords, some of whom said they owned just a few housing units. The other two were groups of lawyers who represent tenants and landlords in court, as well as advocates from Central New York Fair Housing. 

Hogan’s campaign did not respond to an inquiry regarding what questions, if any, the council president still has on “good cause.”

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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...