Court Stalls NYCHA Eviction Case Against Tenant With Liver Cancer

BROWNSVILLE, BROOKLYN — The city's public housing authority has delayed an eviction case against a cancer-stricken tenant, attorneys working on the case said Monday.

William Sanchez, a 64-year-old tenant in Woodson Houses in Brownsville, is battling stage four-liver cancer and an eviction case against him brought by NYCHA. The Legal Aid Society has been urging the housing authority to stop attempting to evict Sanchez, because he is ill and too occupied caring for his elderly mother to handle the onerous process to add himself to the tenancy.

On Monday, a housing court judge ruled that the eviction case be delayed until Jan. 28, when Sanchez's health will be reevaluated.

“We thank the Court for granting this stay and NYCHA for not contesting our motion," Lucinda James, staff attorney with the Brooklyn Neighborhood Office at The Legal Aid Society, said in a statement. "This critical time will allow Mr. Sanchez to stay in his home and focus on his health.”

Still, James urged NYCHA to put a stop to the eviction case altogether.

“NYCHA can still withdraw its eviction proceeding against Mr. Sanchez," said James, "and we urge the Housing Authority to do exactly that come January."

In 2015, Sanchez moved into his mother's apartment to take care of her. Sanchez and his mother then went through the process of adding the younger Sanchez's name to the tenancy, but his mother was too sick to keeping going to NYCHA's management offices, said his attorneys.

During the process, Sanchez was diagnosed with advanced stage liver cancer, which has spread to his throat, requiring him to receive chemotherapy and radiation treatment, said his attorneys. NYCHA then began a process to evict Sanchez, prompting The Legal Aid Society to in October 2017 file a lawsuit to stop the housing authority from doing so, the group said.

In February 2018, the suit was dismissed, because Sanchez was too ill to handle filling out the paperwork, his lawyers said. And in August of that year, NYCHA relaunched its eviction proceedings, but agreed a six-month stay that had subsequently been extended via a series of court orders until earlier this month, Legal Aid said.

The stays expired Monday, when a Brooklyn Housing Court judge granted the organization's order to show cause that NYCHA chose not to contest, which will keep Sanchez and his mother in their home until at least late January.