QCH fights for Improved Access to SCRIE and DRIE

Queens Community House
108-25 62nd Drive
Forest Hills NY 11375
Tel: 718.592.5757
Fax: 718.592.2933
info@queenscommunityhouse.org

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QCH fights for Improved Access to SCRIE and DRIE

On March 2nd, representatives from Queens Community House’s (QCH) housing department addressed the NYC Council Committee on Finance, the Committee on Aging and the Subcommittee on Senior Centers regarding legislation to improve access to the New York City Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) and the Disability Rent Increase Exemption (DRIE) programs, which allow low-income seniors and people with disabilities to remain in their homes without rent increases.

QCH’s housing department began to notice that eligible tenants were losing their SCRIE and DRIE benefits after the Department of Finance started overseeing these programs in September of 2009.
In recent months, QCH has seen six SCRIE and DRIE renewal applicants who have lost their benefits without notification that their cases were no longer current. These tenants continued paying their rent as if they had been approved, but once the landlord realized that the tenant was no longer receiving the benefits (sometimes a year or two after the tenant lost their benefits) the landlord charged the tenant the rent that they were not paid by the Department of Finance. In addition to the retroactive rent that tenants owed, they also have to pay higher rents and were only eligible to apply for benefits at the current legal rent. Tenants on very fixed incomes usually don’t have the money to pay these increased rents and are at risk of being evicted from their apartments.

QCH is working with SCRIE to make sure that the arrears are covered by SCRIE and that the tenants may stay in their apartments, but they are concerned that without strong legislative reforms, future tenants will face this unintentional financial burden. Tenants coming to QCH are often asked to produce a tax return with applications. As applicant income is usually just above $10K, these tenants often do not fill out tax returns so they are unable to provide the requested information to the Department of Finance. QCH staff members have faced tremendous difficulty in communicating directly with the Department of Finance about these cases. There are no representatives at all who can speak about DRIE, and it often takes more than ten minutes for a 311 representative to come to the phone and speak about the status of SCRIE cases. Phone representatives have no ability to make alterations to a case. In order to change a case, tenants must send a letter, and responses often take months.

QCH commended the New York City Council Finance Committee for drafting legislation that would ensure that landlords are notified quarterly about Tax Abatement Credits and provide non-English information to tenants upon request. QCH suggested that the legislations should include: a requirement that recertification packages for SCRIE and DRIE be send out to tenant; initial and recertification applications should be provided in non-English languages and accessible on the website; ensure that SCRIE and DRIE are more sensitive to tenants needs, considering that tenants are elderly and/or have disabilities which make access to the programs more difficult; tenants should not be asked to send in tax returns (most incomes are well below the level that requires paying income tax); include in legislation that failure to recertify by the tenant should automatically end in retroactive payment by SCRIE to the landlord once the tenant has recertified (so that tenants may continue receiving the benefit and not owe landlords arrears and be at risk of eviction); include in legislation that tenants who failed to recertify on time due to lack of notice from SCRIE or DRIE, shall be recertified by SCRIE or DRIE at the original rental amount they were initially approved for; and whichever agency administers SCRIE/DRIE should appoint a representative to be a point of contact for community based agencies to communicate with directly regarding SCRIE and DRIE matters.