(NEWS10) – This week on Empire State Weekly, as New York State’s eviction moratorium comes to an end, lawmakers are weighing solutions that would have a more meaningful impact on the statewide housing crisis. One effort is the “good cause eviction” legislation, which if passed, would address areas such as cap rent increases on existing tenants and prevent landlords from removing a renter without an order from a judge. But groups opposing the law argue that this could further hurt New York’s economic recovery.

We hear from Jennifer Vucetic, President of the New York State Association of Realtors, who previously testified at a State Senate public hearing that imposing statewide rent control would decimate New York’s real estate market. “Real estate is the one thing that really puts money back into our economy,” says Vucetic. “When these laws are so restrictive, it then makes people not want to buy investment properties, not be landlords, and put their properties on the market and maybe buy somewhere else and invest their own money in properties where they can be landlords that’s more property right owner friendly.”

According to Vucetic, the legislation would have the most negative impact on small business landlords. “This will effect a lot of mom and pop property owners who need that rental income to pay for mortgages and home repairs,” Vucetic argues. “This bill will be very prohibitive because it is now saying that if you want to do anything with your property, you’ll need to go to the courts and ask permission.”

We also discuss the pushback on calls to have employees return to work in-person full time as Governor Hochul urges employers to not resort back to wide-spread telecommuting due to the potential economic backlash of allowing people to keep working from home.

Wayne Spence, President of the New York State Public Employees Federation, joins us to discuss what he feels the state needs to do for these public employees to keep them better protected from COVID. He says telecommuting is the safest strategy that has worked throughout the pandemic and is critical of the state’s lack of resources, such as providing N95 masks, in order to prevent employees’ health from being compromised in high-risk workplace settings.

Here is a list of how you can watch Empire State Weekly in your area of New York every weekend: