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Rent increases on stabilized units took effect this week. Tenants and mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani rallied to protest the change, which they hope will be the last for four years.
Eric Adams’ re-election campaign is over, according to a video announcement from the mayor from Gracie Mansion Sunday afternoon. But his administration’s policies continue to shape New Yorkers’ lives.
On Wednesday, rent increases from New York City’s Rent Guidelines board took effect. That means rents for the city’s 1 million rent stabilized units can go up no more than 3 percent for new one-year leases, and 4.5 percent for two-year leases.
Tenants, alongside mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani, took to the streets to protest the rent hike, which they hope will be the last for four years.
“This policy of raising the rent year after year like we’ve seen from this administration… that is a policy that will come to an end when I am the mayor,” Mamdani said, while standing before a rent stabilized building in the Bronx at another rally Wednesday.
If Mamdani wins, he’s promised to freeze rent-stabilized rents for four years. The mayor appoints the Rent Guideline Board members that set allowable increases.
“People are lining up at food pantries because they can’t eat and pay the rent. It’s just unbearable. We are suffering. They’re pushing all of us out. 32 years I worked, and now I am worried about becoming homeless,” said Patricia Jewett, a rent stabilized tenant in the Bronx.
The cumulative stabilized rent increase under Eric Adams’ administration amounts to 12.6 percent, according to an analysis by the Community Service Society. That would make it the largest on-term increase since the Bloomberg era, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg raised the rent 13.4 percent, 15.6 percent, and 12.5 percent over his three terms.
Building owners have pushed back against Mamdani’s idea of a rent freeze, saying that buildings with a lot of rent stabilized units don’t have enough revenue to keep up with costs, resulting in deferred maintenance.
But, “the relationship between rents paid and repairs delivered is a tenuous one at best,” countered Mamdani.
Here’s what else happened in housing this week—
ICYMI, from City Limits:
- Hundreds of privately-run buildings across New York City collect federal subsidies under Project-Based Rental Assistance, which helps some 100,000 low-income tenants afford housing. But the program has major flaws, a three-part City Limits’ investigation found: paperwork errors on behalf of property managers are shockingly common, many buildings have repair and maintenance needs, and it can be hard to know who’s responsible for enforcing the rules.
- During the most recent fiscal year, more New Yorkers reported not having heat in their apartments than any time on record. Here’s how to get help if your landlord won’t turn up the thermostat this “heat season,” which kicked off Oct. 1.
- The federal government is shut down. But public benefits and federal housing subsidies shouldn’t see disruptions, at least through the month of October, legal experts say.
ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:
- Investigators are looking into whether a boiler safety system failure is responsible for the partial collapse at NYCHA’s Mitchel Houses earlier this week, according to THE CITY.
- The city hired a batch of new water ecologists to inspect buildings’ cooling towers after a deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Harlem this summer, Gothamist reports.
- Two prominent political clubs are throwing their weight behind the housing-related Charter change measures on the ballot next month, which would reform the city’s land use approvals process, according to City and State.
- The New York Times looks at what the city’s next mayor can do to address student homelessness.
- The NYPD plans to expand the number of NYCHA campuses where a free internet program is being used to tap into security cameras, according to New York Focus.
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