Yadira Susseth received an eviction notice from her landlord in March after living with her seven children in a duplex on Jefferson Avenue for several years.

She would have to move out by June 30. But with a lack of affordable alternatives, Susseth is stuck in legal limbo as she pleads with the courts to be allowed to stay in her home.

The notice set June 30 as the move-out date, but Susseth is still there, in limbo as she fights the eviction in court, knowing that the lack of affordable housing leaves her with few other options.

“To be honest, I don’t know what to expect,” Susseth said. “I’m just taking it day by day. This is very hard, extremely hard for me. It’s so overwhelming.”

Susseth is one of thousands of Rochester residents facing eviction amid skyrocketing rents in an overheated housing market and despite government efforts to provide some stability and protection for renters like Susseth.

However, this protection is not enough. But a change in state law is a glimmer of hope for housing activists.

Earlier this year, Governor Kathy Hochul passed a statewide Good Cause Act that municipalities can participate in. The law provides a right to extension and limits rent increases to 10% or 5% plus the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower.

The City of Rochester is considering the issue after previously attempting to implement just cause protections in 2022 but failing. But the city’s latest attempt, put forward by the City Council’s majority caucus, is so limited that it excludes thousands of renters – likely including Susseth.

Evictions in numbers

New York State imposed a moratorium on most evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, but that moratorium expired in January 2022, and the number of eviction filings has begun to return to pre-pandemic levels.

Evictions due to non-paying tenants have always made up the largest proportion of lawsuits.

But since the end of the moratorium, the number of evictions for other reasons – including non-renewal of leases, so-called “holdover evictions” – has almost doubled.

The legal process for evictions used to end when the tenant found a new place to live and moved out. But now the legal process is being drawn out because tenants lack alternatives, says Ryan Acuff of the Rochester City-Wide Tenant Union.

“Basically, people are letting time pass,” Acuff said. “As opposed to ‘Oh, I’ll just find a new place to live’ … people today are just not able to find a new place to live.”

An example of this is eviction orders or court orders to remove a person from a property, which have now returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Housing activists argue that rising rents have exacerbated the problem.

“Base rents have definitely gone up noticeably here in the city,” said Mark Muoio, a housing attorney and former county commissioner.

He sees the price issue as cyclical. Higher property prices prompt investors to increase rents to get a return on their investments. Higher rents then attract more investors and drive up prices.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the market rent for a one-bedroom apartment increased by more than 35% between 2020 and 2024, from $775 to $1,050.

That’s more than three times the increase over the last five years.

“Of course we want wages to rise,” Acuff said. “But if rents remain unregulated and continue to rise, it’s like a hamster wheel.”

Good cause

Susseth successfully fought the eviction last year and said she has since paid rent on time and has not violated the terms of her $850 lease. Her landlord, Collins Management, simply decided not to renew the lease this time.

D’Ondre Collins of Collins Management referred questions to his attorney, John Costello, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“It’s not fair and I’m scared,” Susseth said. “There are many things I wish were better for me and the kids… I don’t want to be there forever, I really don’t. But what choice do I have?”

This is where the idea of ​​eviction for good cause could come into play.

The city’s current proposal is a cookie-cutter copy of state law. It would exempt landlords who own ten or fewer units or whose rent is 245 percent of the area’s market rent. It would also exempt newer units that came online after January 1, 2009 (for which a permit to use was issued).

Due to these restrictions, many buildings would not be covered.

For example, there are 21,728 non-owner occupied residential properties in the city, of which 8,631 have owners controlling 11 or more rental units. That means the apartment cap alone would exempt 60% of all city rental properties from the tax.

The state allows municipalities to adjust tenancy and rent exemptions. Five municipalities have done so. Kingston, Ithaca, Beacon, Albany and Poughkeepsie grant exemptions only to landlords with a single rental unit.

If Rochester were to implement the one-unit rule, the proportion of exempt properties would drop to about 17%.

“Good cause eviction protections are designed to ensure that people are not forced out of their homes simply because landlords want to get more money out of them. Yet current legislation leaves tens of thousands of tenants at the mercy of landlords who can exploit these loopholes to maximize their profits at the expense of our communities,” said Lisle Coleman, organizer with the City-Wide Tenant Union, in a statement.

Councilwoman Mary Lupien supported the city’s original Good Cause bill, which exempted only two-unit, owner-occupied properties from the insurance requirement. She said a key goal this time should be to close loopholes that could allow, for example, a property owner with multiple limited liability companies (LLCs) to avoid Good Cause insurance.

Landlords can register property rights under individual LLCs, meaning they can split their portfolio between different owner names. Proponents argue that this would effectively allow them to evade Good Cause laws by limiting the number of properties registered in their name.

“Instead of fixing the problem, we are trying to keep this loophole open that benefits very few at the expense of very many,” Lupien said.

The final public hearing on Good Cause is scheduled for Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Edgerton Recreation Center. Lupien said there has been little discussion in council about amending the bill.

“We don’t really talk to each other,” she said.

But when City Council President Miguel Meléndez and his colleagues introduced the measure in June, they viewed the legislation as an opportunity for an in-depth exchange of ideas.

“Remember, this is up for discussion, nothing is passed,” Meléndez said. “This is an opportunity for us to be an advisory body.”

Many landowners throughout Rochester strongly oppose Good Cause protections.

The Rochester Housing Coalition, an association of landlords and property managers, argues that Good Cause will only exacerbate the housing crisis by restricting the development of new housing units. Matt Drouin is the coalition’s chairman and a landlord himself who owns more than 100 properties in the Rochester area. He claims that bills like Good Cause and the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 have led to disinvestment by good landlords. That law set rent increases at 7.5%.

Rochester did not qualify for this protection because it could not demonstrate a vacancy rate of less than 5% for certain residential units.

“We have a housing crisis, there’s just not enough affordable housing that’s being created naturally,” Drouin said. “The HSTPA was kind of the tipping point that really changed the future prospects of responsible homeowners to run their businesses in a sustainable way.”

“Not all, but many of the responsible, best housing providers have left the market,” he continued. “Then someone in California reads an article about how cheap housing is in Rochester, sees a house for $40,000 and thinks, ‘What could possibly go wrong?'”

City land records show that about 16% of all homeowners reside outside the city. About 5% live outside the state.

Drouin said the market could be improved and inventory increased by rehabbing vacant properties and bringing them back into use. About 2% of all properties in the city are currently vacant.

Susseth now hopes that the court will fix what the government has so far failed to do – or at least buy it more time. It is an exhausting process, full of fear of what will happen next. When she talks about it, she tears up.

“I am a good tenant, I have always been a good tenant, I never cause problems and I have always taken care of your property,” she said. “I don’t know what will happen to me and my children.”