With the approach of the 2022 Legislative Session, one of the first issues bound to stir debate will be the Jan. 15 expiration of our state’s most recent eviction moratorium. In September, the governor and the Democratic majorities in the Legislature insisted on extending the moratorium for a third time.

The move has made New York one of just three states with a continuing ban on evictions and has compounded the financial devastation of small rental property owners. Yet, no one should be surprised if there are calls by some legislators in January to extend it again.

The rental debt crisis first began to spin out of control because of the “self-verification” of hardship, which essentially allowed anyone to stop paying rent for any reason, with no proof required. It was a system ripe for abuse. The self-verifying process was eventually, and appropriately, struck down as unconstitutional. However, rather than stop there and let the moratorium expire in August as planned, the Governor and Legislature’s majorities advanced a new moratorium, which they claimed addressed the Supreme Court’s ruling and would allow more time for the distribution of rent relief funds.

Yet, in so doing, they exacerbated an already disastrous situation by allowing tenants in arrears to accumulate another five months of unpaid rent debt largely at the expense of struggling small rental property owners.

On the Senate floor, my majority colleagues justified the extension with claims that unless immediate action was taken, catastrophe would ensue, with tenants and families cast into the streets within days. This was a blatant lie told to propagate the false narrative of the radical special interests behind this moratorium.

The reality is that, even in ordinary times, the eviction process can take between three and six months. However, given current circumstances and the staggering backlog of cases in the courts, a more realistic timeline for the process would be approximately a year, possibly more. Once again, facts were sacrificed to a leftist political agenda.

In the interim, New York’s allotment of $2 billion in federal rent relief funds has been spent or committed. As I predicted on the Senate floor during debate on the bill, there were not enough funds to cover the massive rent back-payments and losses. There are approximately 70,000 to 80,000 applications pending and unpaid. Those claims represent more than $1 billion. Gov. Kathy Hochul has asked the federal government for additional rent relief funds, but so far, no commitments have been forthcoming.

Small property owners have called my offices to recount the hardships the moratorium has caused.

Many have exhausted their savings. Others have re-mortgaged their properties or drained retirement accounts. Still others have sold their rental units to larger entities. An article by Reuters confirms the trend of large institutional investors buying up rental properties from small landlords hurt by eviction bans, a trend that will exacerbate the shortage of affordable housing.

This will be a never-ending cycle, if we let it. For the radical “cancel rent” advocates, that is the goal: the destruction of private property rights and the elimination of market-rate housing.

In their dystopian future, we will live in a state that will look much like a third-world, socialist country where housing options will be limited to private homes for a privileged few, and government-controlled housing for a majority. A leader of the ‘cancel rent’ movement, Cea Weaver, has indicated that property owners “should not be profiting off something people deeply need.”

No one disputes that those who are truly in need deserve our assistance. However, that can and should be achieved without reckless, overly broad policies like eviction moratoriums. Such efforts will ultimately hurt those they are intended to help and ensure New York never fully recovers from the pandemic.

Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, represents New York’s 57th Senate District.