| Releases & Statements
For Release: Thursday,
June 22, 2006
Contact: Frank Sobrino, Press Secretary
O: (212) 669-4193
Testimony
of Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum for
Rent Guidelines Board Public Hearing
on Proposed Rent Increases for Rent-Regulated Buildings
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity
to submit testimony.
This city is facing a housing crisis.
According to the latest available data, nearly a third of tenant
households devote more than 50% of their income to rent. For low-income
tenants living in rent-regulated apartments, the proportion is
even higher.
With each passing year, working New
Yorkers get stuck deeper in the mud: their income remains static
while their rent rises, leaving them with no opportunity to get
ahead. If this trend continues, New York will become completely
unaffordable to the nurses, teachers, police officers, and firefighters
who make this city run.
The only way to stop the downward
spiral is to freeze rents now. We’ve somehow gotten to a
point where a substantial rent increase every year is considered
a matter of course. It’s time to remind ourselves that,
while tenants are struggling to keep their heads above water,
landlords are profiting. The extent to which they’re profiting
certainly varies from year to year, but no landlord will have
to cut back on groceries or prescription drugs if rents do not
go up. On the other hand, thousands of tenants will face just
such hardships if the proposed increases are approved.
I am not insensitive to the concerns
of landlords. I know that operating costs have been affected by
the ever-rising price of fuel. But landlords have been compensated
with rent increases the past three years. They continue to benefit
from advantageous mortgage rates, and overall operating costs
are stabilizing. There will never be a better time to make affordability
our number one priority.
In addition, I urge the Board to join
advocates and elected officials in calling for home rule over
rent regulation. Rent laws protect more than 1 million units of
affordable housing in New York City, but every day we lose hundreds
of units to vacancy decontrol. Since 1993, vacancy decontrol has
reduced our affordable housing stock by 99,000 units.
The point of Mayor Bloomberg’s
plan to create a substantial new pool of affordable housing is
to increase the overall stock and to make it easier for New Yorkers
to get by. But as long as we keep losing affordable units at such
an alarming rate, we’ll be struggling just to maintain status
quo.
Once these units cease to be regulated,
they’re priced out of reach of the families that once lived
in them. That’s why it’s so important for New York
City to seize control of its own rent laws. If we leave it up
to Albany, our precious affordable housing stock will be subject
to the usual horse-trading, and we could lose thousands of units
in the meantime.
This is a critical moment in New York
City’s history. It is a truism that if you can make it here
you can make it anywhere. The Rent Guidelines Board has a responsibility
to New Yorkers, present and future, to keep that dream alive.
It can start by keeping rent regulation alive and by freezing
rents at their current rate.
Thank you.
###
|
