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Comptroller Blasts Housing Courts' Excessive Wait Time for Translators

By Eddie Small | February 23, 2015 12:00pm | Updated on February 23, 2015 12:06pm
 The Comptroller's office has criticized the city's housing courts over having inadequate services for those who don't speak English.
The Comptroller's office has criticized the city's housing courts over having inadequate services for those who don't speak English.
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DNAinfo/Eddie Small

NEW YORK — Days-long waiting time for translators and inadequate multilingual signs and forms create an additional headache for immigrants in housing courts across the city, a review by Comptroller Scott Stringer found.

"In a city with nearly two million individuals with limited English proficiency, it is outrageous that, in our courthouses, tenants wait hours for interpreters, help desks aren't always able to provide necessary services and signage and literature are inadequate," Stringer said in a statement.

Stringer recently visited the city's housing courts in all five boroughs to assess their language services and found a host of problems including the fact that wait times for interpreters can range from hours to days, meaning some clients are pressured to negotiate without their help.

In addition, multilingual signs and literature are often inadequate or inconsistent, according to the comptroller's office.

"In Manhattan, the first sign a litigant sees after passing through security provides no guidance in any language other than English," Stringer wrote in a letter calling for Chief Administrative Judge A. Gail Prudenti, who oversees operations of the New York State Unified Court System, to address the problem.

"In The Bronx, many signs that would be extremely useful for LEP litigants appear in English only, including the Housing Court Directory and directions regarding how to check in with the court clerk," Stringer added.

Additionally, some clients are illiterate, meaning even the signs that are posted in multiple languages do not help them very much, according to the letter.

To improve housing courts for non-English speakers, Stringer recommended putting up "We Speak Your Language" cards at courthouse entrances and called for a comprehensive review of interpretation services, which could include allocating more resources to increase the availability of interpreters—especially those who speak foreign languages other than Spanish—and using demographic data to tailor signs to each borough's specific needs.

"For instance, while the vast majority of LEP residents in The Bronx speak Spanish, over 100,000 LEP residents of Queens speak Chinese, and more than 35,000 speak Korean," the letter reads.

"There is no time to wait to make common sense changes to improve access to our courts," Stringer said. "This is a language rights issue. We must do a better job at ensuring that every New Yorker, no matter what language they speak, has an equal shot at justice."

The Office of Court Administration did not immediately respond to call for comments.