Study links NYC tenant right to counsel to fewer ER visits

What happened

A UCLA Health-led study found that emergency room visits dropped in the first New York City neighborhoods where the city began giving free eviction lawyers to low-income tenants. Newswise carried the announcement. The City reported the details, saying the study was published Wednesday in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

According to The City, researchers reviewed more than 8 million emergency department visits from January 2016 to February 2020. They counted only visits by city residents who were uninsured or on Medicaid. The researchers chose that group because right-to-counsel help is limited to people below a certain income level. In the first 10 ZIP codes where the program started, there were at least 26 fewer emergency visits per 10,000 residents. In ZIP codes added in later phases, the rate did not change.

The study also found that emergency visits tied to mental health and substance use rose after the program rolled out. Lead author Dr. Katherine Chen, an assistant professor at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, called the program a leading possible explanation for the drop, not a proven cause. She said her team plans more research.

The City reported that New York launched the nation's first right-to-counsel program as a pilot in 2016. It began in 10 ZIP codes chosen for factors like high rates of shelter entries and evictions, including Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, parts of Staten Island's North Shore, Harlem, and Tremont and Kingsbridge in the Bronx. It grew by five ZIP codes at a time over about three years and went citywide in March 2020, two years ahead of schedule, largely because of COVID. The study period ended before that expansion.