Joan Rodriguez slept on a park bench the night after the landlord locked her out of her apartment. In the three years since then, she has slept on the train, in friends’ living rooms and at a shelter while fighting to get back into the apartment she said she was illegally barred from.

Rodriguez had been living in downtown Brooklyn with her roommate, whom she loved like a sister. In October 2022, her roommate died suddenly, and about two weeks later her landlord changed the locks. Rodriguez said she was in shock. She had been living there for more than four years and had gotten no court order saying she had to leave.

“I was so scared,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do, because I never had that problem.”

Rodriguez is one of thousands of New Yorkers who have accused their landlords in housing court of illegally locking them out of their homes in recent years, according to data published by the City Council. More than 1,000 cases have been filed so far in 2025. Attorneys who represent tenants said those numbers are likely an undercount, because many renters don’t pursue cases in housing court.

New York laws prohibit property owners from evicting lawful occupants from rentals, including by changing the locks, unless they have court orders. The ongoing use of illegal lockouts reflects the tension between renters who are desperate to hold onto their housing — especially when it’s affordable — and landlords who say the state’s tenant protections make it too difficult for them to manage their buildings.

Meanwhile, residents can be forced out of their homes for months or even years as they wait for an overwhelmed court system to resolve their illegal lockout cases.

“ What kind of world do we want to have where a landlord could simply just put you out of your home, and then it's on you to go back to the courts and ask for an order for you to be put back in? It sort of defies all logic and principles of due process,” said Andrew Scherer, director of the Housing Rights Clinic at New York Law School.

An appellate court ruled this summer that Rodriguez’s landlord should not have locked her out of the apartment and ordered that she be let back in. The decision could have a ripple effect for future cases when property owners try to change the locks.

‘Is this my life right now?’

Rodriguez was locked out of a rent-stabilized unit in the Hub, a luxury building in downtown Brooklyn with a movie theater, a swimming pool, a fitness center and a dog park. The building sets aside some units for affordable housing through a tax benefit program, according to property records.

Rodriguez moved into the apartment in 2018 to take care of her then-fiancé’s sister, according to court papers. He was incarcerated, and his sister, Tina Ann Williams, had Down syndrome, blindness and dementia, court papers state.

Rodriguez said in an affidavit that she used to help Williams get ready in the morning, take her to doctors’ appointments, feed her, dress her and bathe her. But Rodriguez considered herself more than a caretaker, she said in the affidavit. She said she relished the moments they shared watching TV together, celebrating birthdays and dancing to music from the 1970s.

“I treated Tina like she was my own sister and considered her family,” Rodriguez said in the affidavit.

In October 2022, Williams died in her sleep from a heart attack, according to court papers. The very next day, Rodriguez said, the landlord locked her out of their shared apartment. Losing Williams and getting locked out came as a double shock, she said.

“I have to put this face on like I’m strong, but I’m not,” she said in a recent interview. “You don’t get to grieve.”

Rodriguez got a new set of keys, but a couple weeks later, the property owner changed the locks again, according to court papers.

“I couldn’t believe,” she said. “I was like, ‘Is this my life? Is this my life right now, after all the work I’ve put in this city?’”

Rodriguez filed an illegal lockout case in housing court. The property owner argued Rodriguez didn’t have a right to the apartment after Williams died because she was a home care attendant, not a tenant or a family member, according to court papers. The landlord also argued that the two-bedroom, low-income unit had a lengthy waitlist and would be under-utilized if Rodriguez were living there alone.

Scherer, the tenant rights attorney, said whether Rodriguez could prove she had the right to stay in the unit long term should not have mattered. What mattered was that the landlord took action without a court order.

“The landlord can’t take the law into their own hands,” he said.

New York laws prohibit property owners from evicting lawful occupants from rentals without court orders. Scherer said that includes changing the locks.

“Removing somebody from their home is violent and awful and unacceptable,” he said.

Samar Katnani, Rodriguez’s lawyer, said she and other tenant attorneys thought illegal lockouts would be “a thing of the past” after lawmakers passed legislation in 2019 that bolstered protections for residents of rent-stabilized apartments like Rodriguez’s. But the lockouts have continued, she said, and attorneys noticed that judges were often ruling against occupants whose long-term future in the apartment was uncertain.

“That was really troubling,” said Katnani, who is deputy director of the Tenant Rights Coalition at Legal Services NYC.

The City Council passed a bill last month that classified unlawful evictions as a form of tenant harassment. Illegal lockouts are also a misdemeanor under both city and state law.

Even so, arrests for illegal evictions have multiplied in recent years, from 30 in 2022 to 80 in 2024, according to NYPD data. As of Sept. 28 this year, police had made 76 arrests for allegedly illegal evictions, a spokesperson said. NYPD data shows the department responds to thousands of complaints of illegal evictions each year, including situations when family members lock one another out of their homes.

A ruling with ripple effects

Adam Leitman Bailey, an attorney who regularly represents landlords, said he advises his clients not to change locks without court orders. But he said many owners of buildings with rent-regulated units fear squatters will move in and try to claim they have the right to stay, which can prompt lengthy and expensive court battles. New York law allows family members who have lived for an extended period of time with a tenant to stay in their rent-regulated unit after the tenant dies. Close loved ones who are not related can also qualify.

“The fear that a lot of landlords have is that because it’s a rent-regulated apartment — rent-stabilized or rent-controlled — they may get new occupants if they don’t secure the premises,” he said.

In Rodriguez’s case, a housing court judge initially decided that she should not be allowed back into the apartment, before being overruled on appeal. The appellate court said illegal lockout protections should apply even when someone’s long-term right to the apartment has yet to be established — a ruling that could help other New Yorkers to remain in their homes.

Leitman Bailey said winning an illegal lockout case does not necessarily mean Rodriguez will get to stay long-term. He said Rodriguez’s landlord could still go back to court and try to evict her through legal means.

“ She should not get comfortable,” he said.

But Rodriguez said she’s feeling hopeful. The general manager of her building, Kelly Lang, said in a statement to Gothamist that the landlord is waiting for the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development to inspect the apartment and approve Rodriguez’s application for a housing voucher. If the request is approved, Rodriguez will get a new lease, a spokesperson for the property owner said.

Rodriguez hopes to be back in the apartment by early November. She said the first thing she’s going to do when she gets home is cook pork shoulder, stewed chicken and rice with beans in her own kitchen.

“It is so relieving,” Rodriguez said. “Now I sleep a little better.”