The New York City Independent Budget Office summarized its recent analysis of the Right to Counsel program, telling the Council that eligibility for free legal assistance in housing court has increased dramatically since the program began and that contract and funding structures have not adjusted to the new reality.

IBO testified that the program’s geographic roll‑out was accelerated during a period of unusually low eviction filings and that, by 2024, the number of cases eligible for the program had grown by an estimated 222% from 2017 levels. The office warned this increase, combined with longer case lengths after the pandemic and legislative changes to eviction procedure, created a mismatch between how providers are compensated and the actual work required.

IBO described three interrelated problems: (1) more cases are eligible for counsel than the program was originally resourced to handle; (2) cases take longer to reach a first major decision — fewer cases now resolve within six months than before the pandemic; and (3) funding has not scaled with eligibility. Between 2022 and 2024, IBO said eligible cases grew by about 110% while city spending rose only about 33%.

The result, the report said, is a measurable drop in full representation rates for tenants. IBO’s analysis found that overall tenant representation in housing court fell from a peak around 71% (post‑startup) to about a third of cases by 2024; within the RTC program more tenants are receiving time‑limited “brief assistance” instead of full representation.

IBO also noted changes to contracts in 2023 and 2025 that affected provider budgeting and cash flow: the agency stopped allowing providers to count “rollover” cases toward annual deliverables (a practice providers had relied on when cases extended past a contract year), and the 2025 contracts introduced a performance‑based 10% component that providers report complicates budgeting. Late payments and invoicing timing further strained nonprofit budgets, IBO said.

IBO’s recommendation set included improving cross‑system data to measure eligibility precisely, reconsidering how cases that span fiscal years are counted, and aligning funding to caseload and case complexity so that the program can deliver full representation to eligible tenants.

The IBO analysts who testified (Sarah Internicola, Claire Salant and Marla Simpson) urged the city to treat program scale as subject to appropriation and to plan for case‑length realities when structuring provider contracts.