The state Legislature may have held what Gov. Kathy Hochul called an extraordinary session earlier this week, but the results were far from that.

Any extension of an eviction moratorium in New York state needed to strike a balance between meeting the needs of tenants who have lost jobs due to COVID-19 and the needs of landlords. That was the gist of the U.S. Supreme Court’s message to the state when the high court struck down part of the state’s eviction moratorium, saving renters can’t avoid eviction by simply submitting a hardship declaration but instead must prove hardship in court.

It seems logical, but that’s not what the state did Wednesday.

Democrats are patting themselves on their collective backs for including in the legislation provisions that landlords will be able to challenge hardship declarations and direct judges to require tenants with hardships to apply for rental assistance. Landlords say this week’s moratorium extension should have come with an income limit so that evictions were stopped for those with low income. Landlords also are upset that Wednesday’s legislation makes landlords bear the burden of proof to show tenants don’t have a hardship. They say tenants should have to prove they can’t pay.

We agree with the landlords. They, after all, are the ones on the hook for municipal, county and school taxes, repairs, maintenance and insurance each month while receiving, in too many cases, no income from their property. It seems unfair that the landlord should have to compel proof that a tenant is facing hardship.

Those claiming hardship should be able to prove that hardship, just as they do with utilities. If they truly like the place where they live proving hardship is something they should do. Those that qualify for help should apply for the government’s help through the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which comes with a year’s protection against eviction while also providing payment to property owners.

Those who can’t prove hardship should have to pay up. Perhaps the imminent threat of eviction will spur more tenants to pursue the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which now has $2.6 billion to give to those who need help but which had only given $230 million to more than 15,000 households through Wednesday. Help is available, if people will pursue it and if the state loosens the purse strings to get the money to the people who need it.

In every group, there are good apples and bad apples. Landlords are no different. What seems to have happened in Albany is Democrats have painted all landlords to be money-grubbing deadbeats who rent slum apartments and refuse to do any maintenance. And while there are some who fit that description, there are a good many landlords who take care of their properties, who are attentive to their tenants’ needs and who have been more than willing to work with tenants who have been impacted by the pandemic. And it is those landlords who the state has again foresaken by painting the whole group of apples with a broad, unflattering brush.