The Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) and Disability Rent Increase Exemption (DRIE) programs, administered by the New York City Department of Finance, are two very important programs allowing disabled and senior tenants to maintain affordable housing in New York. These programs allow tenants aged 62 and over and tenants with disabilities to “freeze” their rent if they live in a rent regulated apartment by providing landlords with a tax abatement that accounts for the difference between the frozen rent and the legal regulated rent for the apartment.
While the stock of rent-regulated apartments in the city has decreased significantly over the last 40 years due to laws, policies, procedures, and eviction tactics supported by and favoring landlords over tenants, many of VOLS’ Elderly Project and Veterans Initiative clients have managed to maintain long-term tenancies in affordable apartments with the assistance of the SCRIE program. For these clients, this is their only option for affordable housing. If they lose their homes, they will most likely not be able to obtain affordable housing elsewhere in the only city many of them have ever known.
Maintaining SCRIE benefits requires a tenant first to be eligible, and then to recertify annually to establish their ongoing eligibility. To be eligible for SCRIE, one must be 62 or older, the head of household in a rent regulated apartment, with a total household income of less than $50,000, and must spend more than one-third of their income on rent.
Establishing ongoing eligibility for SCRIE requires a tenant to recertify their income and household composition regularly to prove that they remain eligible. This requires the submission of supporting documents, including some that tenants must obtain from their landlords. When landlords refuse or fail to cooperate with seniors with either their initial application or with their annual recertifications, tenants could find themselves at risk of eviction. This is because without SCRIE they would be unable to afford the legal regulated rent for their apartment.
This is exactly what happened to one of VOLS’ Elderly Project clients, Ms. Malin[1]. Ms. Malin, who is 94 years old, lived with her son in a rent stabilized apartment in Manhattan for over twenty years until he passed away in April of this year. The lease was in her son’s name, and her son applied for and obtained SCRIE and had their rent frozen at $800 per month. When he passed, although Ms. Malin was eligible for SCRIE and had the legal right to a lease in her name, her landlord refused to acknowledge her rights in writing, and in doing so, prevented her from applying to transfer the SCRIE benefits into her name. After twenty years of living in her home and the death of her only son, Ms. Malin – a nonogenarian whose income is less than $1,300 per month – found herself without a lease, and responsible for a monthly rent payment of $2,500. For the first time in her long life at the age of 94, Ms. Malin found herself at risk of eviction in the midst of a pandemic.
Ms. Malin and her daughter reached out to the Elderly Project for assistance. Staff Attorney, Jess Penkoff, sent a demand letter to Ms. Malin’s landlord asserting Ms. Malin’s succession rights to the apartment and to the SCRIE benefit. We explained their legal obligation to provide the needed written confirmation to allow her to take over the SCRIE benefits so that she could continue to pay the frozen rent of $800. We informed the landlord and their attorneys that their inaction not only violated the rules of the SCRIE program and the rent stabilization code, but also constituted lawful source of income discrimination under the New York City Human Rights Law. The City’s Human Rights law prohibits landlords from refusing to take or putting up barriers to tenants utilizing rent subsidy programs like SCRIE.
A few weeks later, after months of noncooperation by the landlord, the landlord’s attorneys provided the required information. Ms. Malin’s rent is now frozen at a rate she can afford to pay, and her landlord has recognized her right to her tenancy and to a lease in her name in writing. Ms. Malin will not be counted among the throngs of New Yorkers who have lost their homes this year. She will not face the trauma of eviction, nor will she need at age 94 to scramble for alternative housing in a landscape in which the stock of affordable housing is significantly less than it was two decades ago when she first moved in with her son.
SCRIE is essential to so many older New Yorkers. This benefit allows low-income seniors New Yorkers to stay in the city they love and, in many cases, the city they grew up in, to stay within commuting distance of their community centers, their doctors, their families, their caretakers, and their friends.
Not surprisingly, the pandemic has made the annual recertification process more difficult. SCRIE recipients must compile and submit proof of their financial situation every year. Whereas handling your affairs online might be a realistic prospect for the general public, New Yorkers who live in poverty disproportionately lack access to the technology needed to access the internet. For these seniors, handling their affairs in-person is the only option but one that may put them at risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. Seniors who rely on SCRIE are often those most at-risk of poor health outcomes or death due to COVID-19.
In order to better support our clients, and their advocates, VOLS has updated our Guide to SCRIE. We want to ensure that our clients and their advocates have a trusted resource to help them understand the eligibility requirements for the program and give them the tools needed to continue to receive these important benefits for as long as they qualify.
This new version of our SCRIE guide includes updates to reflect changes made to the New York State rent laws after the passage of the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act and also now includes links to all of the forms needed to apply for and maintain SCRIE benefits.
We hope that you will download the guide and keep it handy if you or someone you are advocating for is a SCRIE recipient. We are also here to help clients facing issues like the one Ms. Malin faced. If you or someone you know needs legal assistance or advice about their SCRIE benefits, please do not hesitate to contact us. VOLS continues to stand beside vulnerable seniors during these dangerous times.
[1] For the sake of our client’s privacy, we are not using our client’s real name.