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Study Links NYC Tenant Right-to-Counsel Program to Fewer ER Visits
Confirmed
In Short: A study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine found that emergency room visits dropped in the first 10 ZIP codes where New York began providing free attorneys to tenants facing eviction, part of the city's right-to-counsel program.
The program, launched in 2016 as a pilot, aimed to provide low-income residents with legal representation in Housing Court. Over about three years, the program expanded by five ZIP codes at a time, targeting areas with high rates of shelter entries and evictions.
Katherine Chen, lead author of the study and an assistant professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, noted that the program's impact on emergency department visits was significant.
However, the study also found that emergency department visits related to mental health and substance use disorders increased after the right-to-counsel program was implemented.
The research highlights the complex interplay between housing stability and health outcomes. While the program reduced overall emergency room visits, it also revealed an uptick in mental health and substance use disorder visits.
According to Moses Gates, Vice President for Housing and Neighborhood Planning at the Regional Plan Association, even if New York City can protect its low-income renters in gentrifying neighborhoods, displacement pressures persist in other communities throughout the region.
The University of California, Berkeley researchers found that 10 percent of neighborhoods, with almost 550,000 low-income households, are vulnerable to gentrification based on the availability of affordable housing and the presence of vulnerable residents.
Subsidized housing and tenant protections such as rent control and just-cause eviction ordinances can be effective tools for stabilizing communities, but the regional nature of the housing and jobs markets means that local solutions are insufficient to address the full crisis.
Displacement maps and the complete study are available online, providing detailed data to enable community-based organizations and policymakers to assess the risk of displacement of low-income residents on a neighborhood level.
These maps can be helpful in identifying tenant protection strategies for low-income residents living in places such as the Bronx and Newark, where many residents are experiencing displacement in neighborhoods that lack signs of significant investment.
The paper "Homecare medicines linked to fewer A&E visits and bed days". was published in Pharmaceutical Journal in 2025.
What this adds
The study adds to the understanding of how tenant protections can impact health outcomes, showing a reduction in emergency room visits but an increase in mental health and substance use disorder visits.
The research does not establish a direct causal link between the right-to-counsel program and the changes in emergency room visits, but it highlights the need for further investigation into the complex factors affecting health and housing stability.
Background
A new study published in Nature Medicine finds menopause causes sudden changes in bone density, liver function, and blood fats, challenging previous assumptions.
According to the research, the loss of sex hormones triggers an abrupt, systemic biological shift that not only impacts a woman’s reproductive system but also alters a woman’s blood chemistry, lipid levels, liver and kidney function, as well as bone health.
What's confirmed
- The program, launched in 2016 as a pilot, aimed to provide low-income residents with legal representation in Housing Court. Over about three years, the program expanded by five ZIP codes at a time, targeting areas with high rates of shelter entries and evictions.
- Katherine Chen, lead author of the study and an assistant professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, noted that the program's impact on emergency department visits was significant.
- However, the study also found that emergency department visits related to mental health and substance use disorders increased after the right-to-counsel program was implemented.
- The research highlights the complex interplay between housing stability and health outcomes. While the program reduced overall emergency room visits, it also revealed an uptick in mental health and substance use disorder visits.
- According to Moses Gates, Vice President for Housing and Neighborhood Planning at the Regional Plan Association, even if New York City can protect its low-income renters in gentrifying neighborhoods, displacement pressures persist in other communities throughout the region.
- The University of California, Berkeley researchers found that 10 percent of neighborhoods, with almost 550,000 low-income households, are vulnerable to gentrification based on the availability of affordable housing and the presence of vulnerable residents.
- Subsidized housing and tenant protections such as rent control and just-cause eviction ordinances can be effective tools for stabilizing communities, but the regional nature of the housing and jobs markets means that local solutions are insufficient to address the full crisis.
- Displacement maps and the complete study are available online, providing detailed data to enable community-based organizations and policymakers to assess the risk of displacement of low-income residents on a neighborhood level.
- These maps can be helpful in identifying tenant protection strategies for low-income residents living in places such as the Bronx and Newark, where many residents are experiencing displacement in neighborhoods that lack signs of significant investment.
- The paper "Homecare medicines linked to fewer A&E visits and bed days". was published in Pharmaceutical Journal in 2025.
What's still developing
- The pattern is being replicated in high-cost areas across the country A new building goes up in New York City, overshadowing the old Katz’s Deli on the Lower East Side. (Image courtesy David Shankbone ) The New York metropolitan area has seen tremendous economic growth, but many residents in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods are struggling to afford living in the 31-county, tri-state region, University of California, Berkeley, researchers have found.
- This map shows the areas of displacement in the New York City area. (Courtesy Urban Displacement Project) “LISC NYC applauds the creation of these interactive maps with detailed data to enable community-based organizations and policy makers in the New York metro region to assess the risk of displacement of low-income residents on a neighborhood level. With this tool, advocates, elected officials, agency officials and researchers will be able to better target affordable housing preservation and development initiatives and anti-displacement efforts,” said LISC NYC Deputy Director Eva Neubauer Alligood.
- NYCCAS has found that air quality improved dramatically in all NYC neighborhoods over the past decades, but more work is needed to mitigate traffic-related air pollution, which is linked to asthma, heart disease, stroke, and other serious health conditions.
- The report also concluded that the reduced congestion, improvements in transit systems, and investments through the mitigation program — which directs funds toward initiatives in environmental justice communities — clearly demonstrate the overall benefit of the program.
- This report builds on that long-standing work by providing the most comprehensive evaluation to date of the Congestion Relief Zone Tolling Program’s impact on air pollution.
- For nearly two decades, NYCCAS has monitored neighborhood-level air quality to better understand what causes differences between neighborhoods, how pollution changes over time, and how it affects health.
- This investment allows the Health Department to further support the Bronx Asthma Program and expand the Asthma Case Management Program.
- "That suggests three- to six-month moisture measures may be more important for city managers trying to identify periods of heightened risk, rather than longer-term drought assessments," Kucera says.
- "That hasn't changed in more than 40 years." Kucera and UCR landscape ecologist Darrel Jenerette analyzed 141 fires that intersected urban areas across the US between 1984 and 2025.
- "These urban fires consistently occur in suburban, high-income, owner-occupied development," says co-author Dion Kucera, an urban ecologist at the University of California, Riverside (UCR).
- Although the neighborhoods exposed to these fires tended to be richer, those higher-income areas showed faster long-term recovery of land-surface temperature.
- "Adapting to the growing intensity of urban fires requires looking beyond the forest and into the social fabric of our cities."
Sources
- Pharmaceutical Journallink
- The City Reporterlink
- UCLA Healthlink
- University of California, Berkeleylink
- Thecitylifelink
- ScienceAlertlink
- WarpBeat — background on Bones liver and blood fats all shift abruptly at menopause huge study finds link
- WarpBeat — background on Menopause Triggers Abrupt Shifts in Body Systems, Study Finds link
- Daily Q&A — video link