In Queens Housing Court, Waiting Takes a Toll

By An Peng, James Schapiro and TuAnh Dam

Shaquana Josey sat outside the courtroom doors, playing with the strands of hair she pulled from a black hairbrush to distract herself from the thoughts and fears running through her head.

Josey had been sleeping on the streets for more than two weeks after she, her husband and young daughter had been evicted from their apartment for missing rent again. She had filed a motion that afternoon, asking to be let back into her apartment while she tried to make up the almost $6000 in missed payments.

Now, Josey was waiting for the Queens housing court judge’s ruling. He would decide whether she would be permanently evicted from her apartment for continuing to miss rent payments or would be able to return. An Order to Show Cause allows residents, like Josey, to explain to the judge why they need more time — to pay rent, leave an apartment or contest a previous ruling. If the order was denied, Josey said, she would be officially evicted.

The more than two hours waiting in the courthouse for that decision, she said, was agonizing. “I’m a nervous wreck because I’m waiting on one of the clerks to come out telling me the judge’s decision,” she said.

Two benches away, Maritza Cartagena teared up as she waited for the judge’s decision on her fourth show cause order. She was asking the judge for extra time to find a place to live for both herself and her pets. But she said she wasn’t optimistic about the outcome, and feared parting with her pets.

“We’re losing our dogs,” Cartagena said. “It’s like we’re starting from scratch again.”

All the judges except for Judge John Landsen were away attending a three-day judicial seminar. But Cartagena and Josey were two residents who, despite the slower week in housing court, still had to wait hours in front or the courtrooms for their OSC forms. Some in the hallways were calm — playing music from portable radios or napping on wooden benches. Others, like Josey, worn down by an entire day in a courthouse hallway, were worried about where they would sleep that night.

Josey has $5861.50 in claims against her and has been sued seven times by her landlord, Greenport Preservation LP. But each time, the not knowing, she said, feels like a prison sentence. “I don’t know how to deal with this stress,” she cried. “I just want to go home, that’s all I want, and then I’ll figure it out.”

Finally, her paperwork was approved and she would need to return to court in two days, her day off from work. All she could do between now and then, she said, was wander and find a park bench to sleep on.

Cartagena and Josey’s cases are not uncommon, according to Derek John Soltis, a landlord-tenant attorney from New York. He said he sympathized with the tenants, but he questioned Cartagena’s activeness about finding a place for her dogs.

“As a landlord, I have had section 8 tenants move in and out of my property, and as long as they were on top of their paperwork and communicating with their case worker there were not any issues,” Soltis said in an email. “She already had six months plus to figure out what to do with her dogs, six days seems like she is just making up excuses.”

Soltis said many times tenants can go to the Salvation Army or Catholic Charities to get one-time assistance, which would be helpful for solving temporary problems such as a missed paycheck, car repair, or other unseen bills for both the landlord and tenant. On the other hand, most landlords do not know how to get around the serial bankruptcy filers and do not find city or state courts that are able to help them.

“We see this all the time where people just need to sit down and look at all of their options. Same with tenants who have horrible landlords,” Soltis said. “Sometimes they just need to be reminded of their rights to get out of a situation that they see no way forward.”

Keisha Henry, who had also been waiting for more than an hour, said she recently started working as a retail clerk, but in May, a complaint was filed by 1847 Astoria LLC to evict her as a holdover — meaning that there is no issue of unpaid rent. In June, Judge Sergio Jimenez issued a judgement with possession and ruled in favor of the landlord. On September 11, Jimenez granted Henry show cause order to stay eviction. Henry was at court again to ask for more time.

She seemed to speak for the entire near-empty hallway.

“I’m hopeful, but at this point I’m just so tired,” she said. “I don’t want to be homeless, of course.”

But then Henry’s name was called, and she found that she, too, had seen her OSC denied.

A clerk in a pink dress came out of a courtroom and called Cartagena’s name. The judge had denied her show cause order, she said. But if Cartagena could come back with specific information answering the judge’s concerns — about where and when her family would be moving — the judge might reconsider and be willing to grant it.

She would just need to come back, file the paperwork and wait again.