Press Release
CSS Brief Examines Impact of 2022 Rent Hikes on Low-Income Tenants
Recommends passage of `Good Cause’ Eviction Legislation and Housing Access Voucher Program
The latest findings from the Community Service Society of New York’s (CSS) annual Unheard Third survey highlight ongoing concerns many New York City tenants continue to have about housing affordability in the face of ever-rising rents and the lack of stronger protections against evictions. Indeed, for nearly 378,000 of the city’s market rate tenants with household incomes under $50,000, such rent increases could very well lead to eviction and potentially homelessness.
Overall, 59 percent of the city’s market-rate tenants saw their rents increase in 2022, and none saw their rents fall. Compared to 2021, this constitutes a 37 point jump.
Rent increases affected tenants of all income levels and across all five boroughs with Staten Island (66 percent) and the Bronx (65 percent) having the largest percentage of tenants facing rent increases.
In a new brief, “Good Cause for Alarm: Rents Are Rising for Low-Income Tenants in Unregulated Apartments,” CSS housing policy analysts Samuel Stein and Oksana Mironova draw on data from the 2022 Unheard Third survey to argue that the lack of legislative action in Albany in 2022 to curb rent hikes, strengthen tenant protections and expand rental assistance helped contribute to the current distress, rental debt and displacement many New York City tenants are experiencing. To reverse this trend, the brief calls for the passage of Good Cause Eviction Protection (S.3802/A.5573) -- which would prevent unjust evictions and would help tenants challenge unconscionable rent increases – and the Housing Access Voucher Program (S.2804B/A.3701), a rental subsidy aimed at both preventing eviction and re-housing those experiencing homelessness.
“Skyrocketing rents across the city promote instability in neighborhoods and add to the burdens already acutely felt by low-income New Yorkers struggling to make ends meet and get their financial footing in the pandemic-era economy,” said David R. Jones, CSS President and CEO. “With rents out of reach for most low- and moderate-income New Yorkers, we need Albany to take action to provide some level of stability, particularly for tenants living in unregulated apartments. Absent that, we can expect a housing system geared toward maximizing profits will continue to yield more housing instability, more evictions, and increased homelessness.”
Among the brief’s key findings:
- A clear majority of low-income tenants (54 percent) saw their rents rise last year representing a 15-point increase over 2021;
- Most tenants saw no improvement to their building or apartment, despite rent increases;
- The percentage of market-rate tenants with rent debt grew from 16 to 25 percent between 2021 to 2022;
- More and more New Yorkers, including 23 percent of those living below the poverty line, had to move in with others because of financial problems;
- All New Yorkers – especially low-income New Yorkers – rank affordable housing as the single more important thing that would help them advance economically.
Most Rent Increases Did Not Come with Apartment or Building Improvements
The brief also found that among market-rate tenants whose rents rose in 2022, only 32 percent saw corresponding improvements to their building or apartment. While these numbers should be far higher for any tenants experiencing rent increases, they point to an important fact often overlooked in the debates around rent regulation in New York. According to Unheard Third survey data, rent stabilized landlords seem to be more likely to invest in improvements than market-rate landlords.
While making an improvement to a building or apartment is one of the few ways landlords of regulated buildings can justify raising rents, market-rate landlords can simply raise rents based on market conditions.
Finally, a majority (51 percent) of low-income tenants have either already or will soon fall behind on rent compared to a far lower – though still quite high – 27 percent of moderate- to high-income tenants, according to survey data. As a result, a growing number of renters are moving out of what are becoming unaffordable apartments to move in with others, a trend that is highest among the lowest-income households. Eviction attempts were also up in 2022 compared to 2021, with the biggest increases in Manhattan (+12) and the Bronx (+10). Rent regulated tenants saw the steepest jump in evictions (+8) compared to market-rate tenants (+4). Exploring the impact of rent hikes on evictions will be the topic of the next Unheard Third brief, “Assembly-line “justice”: Eviction attempts reach record highs in 2022”, coming out on January 23rd.