Report Issued on Unjustified Evictions in New Jersey

In a newly released report, Unjustified Residential Evictions in New Jersey, a coalition of tenant advocates including the Housing Justice Project of the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall Law School, the Lowenstein Center for the Public Interest at Lowenstein Sandler, Volunteer Lawyers for Justice, and the Housing Justice Program at Rutgers Law School, urges the New Jersey courts to improve the process for reviewing residential eviction complaints. The report is based on data collected and analyzed by the coalition that suggests that eviction judgments or defaults are entered against as many as 29,000 tenant families each year in cases where the court lacks jurisdiction.

Diane K. Smith, recently retired Managing Attorney of the Housing Justice Project at Seton Hall Law School, and Anne M. Kassalow, current Managing Attorney of the Project, contributed as authors of the report. Kayla Strube, Housing Justice Project Coordinator, oversaw the data collection efforts, which included volunteer students and attorneys from eight organizations.

Current Seton Hall Law students Stephen Ingersoll, Jessica Shinski, Agnieszka Karkoszka, and Joseph Wagner assisted with the collection of data while they were summer interns with the Housing Justice Project.

The report’s findings highlight the pressing need for continued reform and oversight to ensure that eviction judgments are entered in New Jersey’s landlord-tenant courts only when there is a legal basis to do so. According to the coalition of tenant advocates, until changes are made, the landlord-tenant courts will continue to enter eviction judgments where they lack jurisdiction, causing numerous tenants to lose their homes when they should not.

The full report can be found here »