LI has high eviction rates despite low rental housing inventory

Daily Point

Are the high eviction rates on Long Island a signal or noise?

Long Island has among the highest eviction rates in the state outside of New York City despite low rental housing inventory.

Evictions are both a tenant's and landlord's worst nightmare, and far from uncommon in Nassau and Suffolk.

Between 2019 and Monday, there have been 44,898 court-ordered warrants of eviction of residential tenants on Long Island, according to the latest data from the New York State Unified Court System. Nassau County's courts have issued 17,087 residential evictions since 2019. Last year alone, there were 4 evictions per 100 residential rental units in Nassau. Meanwhile, Suffolk County courts have issued 27,811 residential eviction warrants in more than seven years. In 2025, 6 warrants per 100 rental units were issued.

"The amount of people pushed out involuntarily is a multiple of that, because there are landlords that do illegal evictions or settlements," said Ian Wilder, executive director of the nonprofit Long Island Housing Services, who noted the trend is increasing. "We're on track to be serving more households and more individuals this year than we did last year."

While countywide data indicates a decline in the issue of eviction warrants on Long Island since 2019, before the pandemic, experts suggest that trend does not play across the region on a neighborhood level.

A warrant for eviction, which is what the state courts data tracks, authorizes a sheriff to remove a tenant from a property. The most common cause of eviction is failure to pay rent, but other causes could be illegal activity, violating the lease agreement, or property damage. About 74.7% of all eviction warrants in Suffolk and 65.3% in Nassau were based on payment failure. The data doesn't reflect what are called "informal evictions" in which landlords raise rents to market value beyond what the existing tenant can afford.

Not all eviction warrants result in an eviction, although most do. Tenants can stop the process by paying rent owed, settling with the landlord, or asking the court for more time. On top of paying an eviction fee to the county sheriff, landlords in Nassau are required to pay for moving costs and a month of storage for the tenant's possessions.

Suffolk has the third-highest eviction rate for any county in the state outside of NYC with only about 90,000 registered residential rental properties, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Nassau has a little more than 85,000 rental homes and the sixth-highest eviction rate in the state, excluding NYC.

Eviction processes are long and agonizing for both tenants and landlords. Long Island's housing market, among the most expensive in the country, often results in homeowners relying on income from tenants to help pay mortgages. Nonpayment of rent in these circumstances and long eviction processes could result in homeowners being at risk of losing their homes, such as in the case of the Selden homeowner who was featured in a recent Newsday story.

Predictably, neighborhoods that have a higher density of rentals, such as Commack, Ronkonkoma and East Patchogue in Suffolk County, and Hicksville, Hempstead and Oceanside in Nassau, recorded more issuance of eviction warrants by ZIP code than others.

Evictions are most commonly associated with residential tenants, but commercial evictions are just as problematic. Long Island has the highest number of commercial evictions in the state outside of New York City. Between 2019 and Monday, Nassau County issued 2,067 warrants for evictions while Suffolk issued 1,814, in total, making up 70% of the state's commercial evictions outside of the city.

— Karthika Namboothiri karthika.namboothiri@newsday.com

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Final Point

Democrats pile on in Suffolk

The legal machinations in the ongoing battle for the Suffolk County Democratic Party chair have exposed a rift between Democrats so divisive the two sides can't even agree what they're fighting about. It's a blue-on-blue battle that would have made Machiavelli grin.

On one side is longtime chair Rich Schaffer, who supporters say knows how to win winnable elections. On the other side is Southold Town Democratic chair Kathryn Casey Quigley, whose backers accuse Schaffer of making deals with the Conservative Party at the expense of Democratic values.

Some Democratic Party sources framed it as a battle between centrist vs. progressive ideals, while others have said the real fight is about a leader who gives party loyalists jobs over pressing a Democratic agenda.

Money that could be spent supporting Democratic candidates is instead being siphoned away in court battles, one Schaffer supporter told The Point, estimating that the legal challenges would cost several thousands of dollars.

"Pick a word: stupid, insane, infuriating, maddening ..." the Schaffer supporter said. "This is somewhere on the spectrum between crazy and an in-kind contribution to Republicans."

Casey Quigley, however, said Schaffer is only fighting her to keep his seat. "This is really just a willingness to sacrifice the effectiveness of the committee in order to hold onto power," she told The Point.

Each side accuses the other of putting rank-and-file Democrats in the crosshairs with social media attacks in addition to challenging their petitions for committee seats. Schaffer's team says Casey Quigley is targeting his supporters like former Suffolk Legis. David Bishop, while Casey Quigley said Schaffer is going after Nancy Goroff, one of her supporters and a former CD1 candidate.

The public statements have gotten personal, with some Democrats asking — to what end?

"If the point is to elect Democrats in a year that by every metric in the world says should be good for Democrats ... it's a waste of a lot of time and effort and money spent that will not fundamentally determine the outcome" of the chair election, a Suffolk Democrat told The Point. There are expected to be roughly 1,500 total committee members voting for the chair election sometime between Sept. 17 and Oct. 6. The total number of challenges by both Schaffer and Casey Quigley amount to less than 5% of the total voting committee members.

This month, Casey Quigley filed specific objections against seven candidates supporting Schaffer and 24 lawsuits on essentially the same grounds. Schaffer's side filed specific objections against 41 people supporting Casey Quigley, sources told The Point.

Schaffer's team said Wednesday they had won 20 of the 24 court cases filed by Casey Quigley.

One Democratic Party source and Schaffer supporter said they filed procedural objections and "never even considered taking our fellow Democrats to court."

In a statement to The Point, Schaffer, who has been chair since 2000, said the attacks are the worst he's ever seen. "I've been doing this a long time, and I've never seen Democrats take each other to court over internal battles like this," he said, adding that the challenge to his leadership isn't "… about strengthening our party or winning elections - and that should concern everyone."

A Democratic Party source who supports Casey Quigley told The Point that the issue isn't "a narrative of progressive vs. moderate" but rather about a leader who will fight for Democrats rather than Conservatives.

One Schaffer supporter said Casey Quigley hasn't suggested alternate candidates for elections or ideas to improve the party. "I don't know what the fight is about," the source told The Point.

Another county Democratic source said it's time for Democrats to unite to beat Republicans in November. "It's time we move on and remember who our real opponent is," the source said. "Instead, we are too busy fighting a ... civil war."

— Mark Nolan mark.nolan@newsday.com

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