City Council Speaker Calls Rent Increases “Tax on Poor”

In a January 19th letter to the New York Law Journal, NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn calls upon the Manhattan Supreme Court to stop the New York City Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) from increasing rents for the New Yorkers who can least afford it. The City Council has joined South Brooklyn Legal Services (a program of Legal Services NYC) and the Legal Aid Society in a lawsuit against the RGB.

Rent Increases are Tax on Poor

Earlier this year, the New York City Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) announced that long-standing rent-stabilized tenants who pay under $1,000 a month would be forced to pay an additional increase above and beyond the annual percentages that all tenants face.

Under these additional increases, if a tenant whose monthly rent is $750 wants to renew the lease for two years, instead of the 8.5 percent increase that other tenants must pay, your rent will increase by over 11 percent.

Some of us would kill for an apartment under $1000 a month. But for a senior citizen or anyone else living on a fixed or limited income, two groups that make up a large portion of rent-stabilized residents, where is the extra money for this additional increase going to come from?

Like many affordable housing advocates, I was stunned by this blatant targeting of low-income New Yorkers in what amounts to nothing more than a "poor tax."

While the economic crisis will affect everyone, including landlords, the people on the bottom of the city's economy will undoubtedly be hurt the hardest by this recession.

They are the ones working without a safety net, the ones who will be forced out onto the street if they can't find a way to cover their increased rent.

Yes, homelessness is a worst case scenario. But at a time when city government has been forced to cut services and employers across the city are cutting jobs, asking people who are scraping by to pay more for rent will only lead to worst case scenarios.

We have already heard stories of people dressed in suits looking for assistance at food banks, and read reports of staggering increases in people applying for and receiving food stamps. And we already know about overcrowding at the city's homeless shelters.

Adding a tax on people already struggling to make ends meet can only make these matters worse.

In an effort to stop this unjust increase, the City Council has joined the Legal Aid Society and South Brooklyn Legal Services in a lawsuit. The case is pending before Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Enily Jane Goodman.

For the sake of so many families, I hope that the court does the right thing and finds these minimum increases illegal. It's time we recognized them for what they really are– an unwarranted tax on the new Yorkers who can least afford it.

Christine C. Quinn

The author is Speaker of the New York City Council 

 

Read more about the Rent Control Guidelines increase as well as the lawsuit by clicking here .