Study links NYC's free eviction lawyers to fewer ER visits in the hardest-hit neighborhoods

New York City's guarantee of a free lawyer for low-income tenants facing eviction may have kept some people out of the emergency room, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The effect showed up only in the neighborhoods where the program started, and it came with a surprise.

What the researchers found

The team, led by Dr. Katherine Chen of UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, analyzed more than 8.2 million emergency department visits from January 2016 to February 2020 by New Yorkers who were uninsured or on Medicaid, a stand-in for the low-income tenants who qualify for right to counsel. The study ends before the program went citywide and before the pandemic.

• First wave: in the 10 ZIP codes that got right to counsel first, in 2017, ER visits fell by about 26 per 10,000 residents. Those ZIP codes were picked for high eviction risk and shelter entries, and included parts of Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant, Harlem, the Bronx's Tremont and Kingsbridge, and Staten Island's North Shore, THE CITY reported.
• Later waves: ZIP codes added later showed no significant change, and across all program ZIP codes the overall drop was not statistically significant.
• Children: ER visits among children fell by about 32 per 10,000, a result the authors call marginally significant.
• Mental health and substance use: ER visits for those conditions rose slightly after the program arrived.

"We can't definitively say for sure it was definitely right to counsel that made people go to the ER less in those early ZIP codes, but that's one leading, possible explanation," Chen told THE CITY.

Why mental-health visits may have gone up

The authors offer several possible explanations in the paper. Tenants who avoid eviction may stay in the same neighborhoods rather than being displaced elsewhere. Lawyers may steer clients toward treatment. And going through Housing Court is stressful even with a lawyer. A Brooklyn housing attorney who represents right-to-counsel clients told THE CITY that "being in the process alone is incredibly traumatic."

The researchers also note limits: they could not tell whether the people who went to the ER had actually faced eviction or used a lawyer, and the data left out ER visits that ended in a hospital admission.

The program today

New York launched the nation's first tenant right-to-counsel program in 2017 and expanded it citywide in March 2020. More than 25 other places have since adopted versions of it. A 2025 report found about 81% of households facing eviction with a lawyer stayed in their homes from 2018 to 2023, THE CITY noted. But a growing number of tenants have gone to court alone because providers lack the funding and staff to meet demand. The Mamdani administration has committed $14 million for right to counsel this fiscal year and $40 million a year after that, THE CITY reported. Legal Services NYC called it a good start but said much more is needed.