Tenants Rally for Fair Rent April 30
By Kenny Schaeffer

On April 30, as the city Rent Guidelines Board discusses rent increases for 2 million New Yorkers, tenants will rally outside the Metrotech Center in downtown Brooklyn from 5 to 7 p.m., to demand a rent freeze for the 2001-2002 period and the abolition of the RGB’s discriminatory "poor tax." (See box on p. 4.) Met Council is demanding a rent freeze for the coming year, meaning that stabilized tenants would be able to renew their leases at the same rent they are currently paying. The case for a rent freeze is obvious: Owners’ profits are at an all-time high, and tenants are paying more for rent than ever before.

Previous RGB guidelines have overcompensated owners year after year by setting renewal increases at levels higher than the board’s own studies have warranted, as shown in a study conducted by Public Advocate Mark Green. Freezing rents for one year would not undo all the damage that has been done in the past, but it will keep things from getting worse. The alternative is another round of unaffordable rent increases.

Owners’ profits have risen 24.5% in the past two years, following continued RGB increases and the weakening of rent and eviction protections by the state legislature in 1997. The further weakening of rent regulations by Gov. Pataki’s state Division of Housing and Community Renewal this past December will only add to tenant hardship. As of last year, about half of New York City households paid more than the federal hardship level, 30% of their income, for rent. One-third paid more than 40% and one-fourth paid more than 50%. As the Coalition for the Homeless has noted, unwarranted rent increases have contributed to the rise in homelessness, now officially above 25,000 (including more than 10,000 children). Food lines have also grown. Met Council demands that the RGB do the job it was created to do under the Rent Stabilization Law of 1969: namely, "to prevent unreasonable rent increases."

There are currently two vacancies on the nine-member RGB, representing two of the five "public member" positions, following the departure of Edward Weinstein in January and Justin Macedonia in March. Under existing law, Mayor Giuliani has the ability to fill these vacancies. Weinstein and Macedonia betrayed the public they were supposed to represent by voting for unreasonable rent increases throughout their years on the RGB, including the low-rent supplement, the "poor tax" monthly increase charged only to people living in apartments renting for below $500 a month. RGB chair Edward Hochman, another public member appointed by Giuliani, has also consistently voted for the poor tax.

Since Rudolph Giuliani was elected in 1993, the number of apartments renting for under $500 has been cut in half, from about 400,000 to under 200,000, while the number of low-income families in the city has remained constant. In 1996, about 40% of rent-stabilized households had annual incomes below $20,000, meaning that they would need apartments below $500 to avoid hardship, but only 28.7% of rent-stabilized units rented for below $500. In 1999, 38% of rent-stabilized households still made less than $20,000, but the number of affordable rent-stabilized apartments had fallen to 20.4% of the supply.

Last year, the RGB approved another poor tax by a 5-4 vote, with Weinstein, Macedonia, and Hochman joining the two landlord representatives in the majority. Public members Augie Rivera and Bartholomew Carmody joined tenant representatives David Pagan and Jeffrey Coleman in voting no.

This year, the fate of the poor tax, as well as the amount of increases (if any) imposed on the city’s 1 million rent-stabilized apartments, will depend on whether Mayor Giuliani fills the RGB’s vacant public-member positions with people who represent the public or the real-estate industry. In the past, he’s picked rubber stamps for landlords.

In addition to the April 30 demonstration, tenant turnout is needed at the preliminary-guidelines vote on May 3, also at Metrotech in Brooklyn; the all-day public hearing on June 13 at the Schomburg Center, West 135th St and Lenox Avenue in Manhattan; and the final vote on June 20 at Cooper Union, 7 East Seventh St. in Manhattan.

Call Met Council at (212) 979-6238 to volunteer for our RGB campaign.