Stand in solidarity with Louis Flores and all tenants fighting for justice in the Queens housing court! WHERE: Queens Housing Court **9:30AM** Meet...
Stand in solidarity with Louis Flores and all tenants fighting for justice in the Queens housing court! WHERE: Queens Housing Court **9:30AM** Meet outside the court located at 89-17 Sutphin Blvd. (If you make it late, please meet us in room 201. FYI: When entering the building you will have to pass through metal detectors.) STAND UP FOR JUSTICE: Help us pack the court for our comrade Louis Flores, a long-time Queens’ resident and freelance journalist whose landlord is taking him to court to make him pay the legal fees for their attorney, who filed a case against Louis in 2016 for nonpayment of rent. Louis is representative of the thousands of tenants that get taken to housing court every year and showing up in support of him means standing up to all the injustices tenants face on a daily basis in court, a place where justice is to be served. >>>>More about Louis and the Disadvantage Tenants Face in Housing Court<<<< Louis lives in a rent-regulated apartment in Jackson Heights managed by Herbert Donner. Donner has a history of not providing essential services, like heat and hot water, to his tenants. Donner’s former business partner, Leonard Spodek, was known as the “Dracula landlord” for failing to correct serious building code violations in the over 50 buildings he owned. Donner and Spodek, who died in 2016, ran ADI Management, a property management firm that Donner heads. In the Spodek tradition, Donner is now engaging in the same tactics to evict long-term rent-stabilized tenants from their apartments. In the nonpayment case Donner started against Louis in 2016, he failed to follow judicial process by failing to serve the correct notice before initiating a case in housing court. Donner started the case after refusing to collect rent from Louis and has also failed to make repairs in his apartment. The case has dragged on since last year and though all back rent has been paid Louis now has a court date on Thursday, July 20 where a judge will decide whether or not to grant Louis’ attorney their legal fee of $5,000 or higher, which would severely burden Louis economically and is an unjust harassment tactic being used to target him for enforcing his rights. Every year landlords file thousands of cases in the Queens Housing Court against tenants to collect back rent. Many of these cases end up being baseless and used as a means to harass rent-regulated tenants out of their apartments. Housing Court was created in 1972 with the mission of resolving rent disputes in an efficient manner and where tenants could seek justice when their landlords were not correcting housing code violations. Sadly, Housing Court has become the city’s largest collection agency and an eviction mill, which helps to enforce the evictions of thousands of tenants every year. Even though the city has increased money for free legal services for tenants who qualify and evictions dropped in 2015 by 18%, there were still 21,988 evictions that took place that year according to numbers released every year by city marshals. Tenants, especially those who do not speak English, are at a total disadvantage in the Queens Housing Court, where there is a huge lack of language access, where there is a lack of information in languages other than English and there are a limited number of interpreters. Tenants who require interpretation end up waiting longer for their cases to be heard, sometimes having to end up taking off another day of work to go to court on a day when an interpreter in their language will be available. Due to the lack of information, tenants often don’t know the court’s check-in system and when they fail to check in by the designated time, they are defaulted and lose their case. However, defaults are not enforced equally on landlords, as the courts often give landlord attorney’s special privileges. One of the biggest disadvantages faced by tenants is lack of legal representation and in many instances tenants end up waiving legal defenses due to their lack of knowledge of the judicial process. The one person who can set the tone for fairness and justice in the Queens Housing Court for tenants is Supervising Judge John Lansden. Better language access, better implementation of court rules for all parties, and in case of Louis, making sure that the judicial process is being followed all the way through not just by tenants but for landlords and their attorneys as well. In the nonpayment case that Herbert Donner and ADI Management started against Louis, there were legal notices that were either never served or served properly. When the case went to trial, Judge Lansden, his trial judge, did not give Louis the same consideration he gave his landlord’s attorney. You can read more about his trial here: https://beforeitsgone.co/stories/PYHRYz. Louis is representative of many of the tenants who end up in Queens Housing Court being railroaded and punished for trying to enforce their rights. In his case, the landlord is forcing Louis to pay his attorney’s legal fees, which can add up to $5,000 and higher. SUPPORT LOUIS AND TENANTS LIKE HIM! Come out and support Louis on Thursday, July 20 at the Queens Housing Court—let’s talk about how we can reform a court that treats tenants so poorly!