New York City Rent Freeze Program

2018 Interactive Report
Jacques Jiha Ph.D. 
Commissioner

Rent Freeze Program

The New York City Rent Freeze Program is comprised of the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) and the Disability Rent Increase Exemption (DRIE). The program assists low-income seniors and people with disabilities who reside in rent-regulated apartments or apartments subject to the Private Housing Finance Law.

The SCRIE and DRIE benefits freeze recipients’ rent and protect them from future increases. As housing costs continue to rise citywide, the Rent Freeze Program helps New Yorkers remain in their homes.

The Rent Freeze exemptions freeze participants’ rent, protecting renters from future increases as long as they remain in the program. The program provides property tax credits to landlords to cover the difference between their tenants’ frozen rent amount and the amount of rent increase that would be permitted by the Rent Guidelines Board.

Those eligible for the program include tenants residing in Mitchell-Lama and other Private Housing Finance Law units, and apartments that are regulated by New York State Housing and Community Renewal (HCR), rent-controlled, rent-stabilized, or hotel-stabilized apartments.

In order to qualify for the benefit, recipients need to meet the following eligibility criteria.

Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE)

Disability Rent Increase Exemption (DRIE)

Age: 62 or older Combined household income: $50,000 or less More than one-third of the monthly household income must be spent on rent Residence in an apartment that is rent-regulated or subject to the Private Housing Finance Law The applicant must be named on the rent order or have succession rights

Age: 18 or older Combined household income: $50,000 or less More than one-third of the monthly household income must be spent on rent Residence in an apartment that is rent-regulated or subject to the Private Housing Finance Law The applicant must be named on the rent order or have succession rights The applicant must have been awarded Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability Insurance, disability-related Medicaid, or a US Department of Veterans Affairs or United States Postal Service disability pension or disability compensation

Current State of Rent Freeze Program

In 2018, 68,610 households received DOF administered SCRIE or DRIE benefits, 56,658 SCRIE recipients and 11,952 DRIE recipients.

Explore rent freeze benefit recipients by census tract using the map below.

Rent Freeze Program enrollment increased 11.9%, from 61,319 in 2014 to 68,610 in 2018, as the result of extensive outreach efforts.

From 2014 to 2018, the total number of SCRIE recipients increased 8.6%, (from 52,171 to 56,658) and the total number of DRIE recipients increased 30.7% (from 9,148 to 11,952).

In its 2018 report on the New York City Rent Freeze Program, DOF updated the methodology used to estimate the number of households eligible to participate in the Rent Freeze Program. In 2016, the most recent year for which complete data was available, 130,314 households were estimated to be eligible for the SCRIE or DRIE benefits. In the same year, 73,299 households received the benefits. The enrollment rate was 56.2%.

The complete report is available here: 2018 Report on the New York City Rent Freeze Program.

The 2018 report documents the increase in program enrollment over the past four years and identifies two barriers to raising the program’s enrollment rate:

• Program Attrition
• Preferential Rent

Program Attrition

The total number of Rent Freeze Program participants increased 11.9% from 2014 to 2018.

However, if not for attrition, the program’s enrollment would have increased 37.2%. Over the past four years, 22,791 households have enrolled in the Rent Freeze Program, while 19,784 have left the program.

New Enrollees

22,791 new recipients have entered the program in the past four years. The map below shows the distribution of recipients who have entered the program in the past four years by census tract.

Recipients Leaving the Program

19,784 recipients have exited the program in the past four years. The map shows the distribution of recipients who have exited the program in the past four years by census tract.

Overall, incoming and outgoing recipient counts are broadly similar across census tracts, with most variation occurring at relatively low levels (1–25 recipients per tract).

Net Change in Program Enrollment

Each point on the graph below represents a census tract, positioned by its number of outgoing recipients (x-axis) and incoming recipients (y-axis), with reference lines dividing the plot into low and high activity areas. The color of each point indicates which quadrant it falls into, helping quickly identify whether a tract is experiencing relatively higher incoming recipients, outgoing recipients, both, or neither.

In examining areas with high activity, several patterns emerge.

• For net loss, notable areas include Manhattan’s Nolita/Chinatown (Census Tract 41), Brooklyn’s Midwood (Census Tract 538), and Manhattan’s Chinatown (Census Tract 29).
• For net increase, prominent locations are Queens’ Corona (Census Tract 455), Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town (Census Tract 44), and Brooklyn’s Prospect Lefferts (Census Tract 798.02).
• Areas showing net neutral activity include Manhattan’s East Harlem around 175th Street (Census Tract 261), Queens’ Woodside South (Census Tract 245), and Manhattan’s Washington Heights South-East (Census Tract 253).

Preferential Rent

Another barrier to increasing the Rent Freeze Program’s total enrollment is preferential rent.

Under the rent regulation law prior to the change made in June 2019, tenants who had preferential rent agreements with their landlords often paid a monthly rent that was significantly lower than the legal regulated rent amount. As a result, these tenants would see little incentive to enroll in the Rent Freeze Program, even though enrollment would have allowed them to continue paying the preferential rent amount while also protecting them from future increases should their preferential rent agreements expire.

The chart below provides the example of a tenant who is currently paying the city’s median monthly preferential rent amount of $1,415 under the old rent regulation law. (source: 2016 HCR rent-stabilized apartment data). This value is shown in the bar chart by the blue area under Year 1.

Many tenants’ preferential rent agreements were for the terms of the lease, not for the life of the tenancy, prior to the change. For them, the gray area shows an additional rent amount the landlord could have legally charged for a typical apartment with preferential rent in the data. The benefit to a tenant qualifying for the Rent Freeze Program in Year 1 under the old law is shown in brown. However, the tenant would have received the program benefit only if he or she is paying the full legal rent amount.

The program would not have provided this tenant with an immediate reduction in rent. The benefit to a tenant whose landlord chooses to increase the rent to the full legal amount may have been negligible at first, but it would increase over the years.

Only 4.1% of current SCRIE and DRIE recipients have a preferential rent agreement, per the preferential rent information the Department of Finance has collected since 2016 as part of the application review process. The administrative data shows that the median of difference between the preferential rent and legal regulated rent is $421 for current Rent Freeze Program benefit recipients who have a preferential rent agreement. This is a significant cost savings compared to the median $192 SCRIE benefit and $173 DRIE benefit. As such, tenants may not have seen an immediate benefit to enrolling.

However, under the new rent regulation law, which state legislature passed in June 2019, all preferential rents will be for the life of the tenancy. This means that if a landlord was offering a preferential rent for the term of the lease only under the old law, he or she is now obligated to continue to offer the preferential rent for all future lease renewals. The preferential rents will be subject to the annual increase restrictions by the Rent Guidelines Board. In addition, if the tenant enters the Rent Freeze Program, the program would freeze the rent at the preferential rent amount. The exact effect of the new rent regulation law is to be seen; however, this may create a new incentive for tenants with preferential rents to enter the Rent Freeze Program.

Preferential Rent Units by Neighborhood

Approximately 250,000, or 30%, of occupied rent-stabilized units are currently paying below the legal regulated rent because they have preferential rent agreements with their landlords.

The map below shows the distribution of preferential rent units by neighborhood.

● = 100 preferential rent units. Dots are randomly distributed within each neighborhood.

Many neighborhoods with a high number of preferential rent units also have a high concentration of households that are eligible for, but not enrolled in, the Rent Freeze Program. The map below shows the distribution of eligible population by neighborhood.

Source: 2016 rent-stabilized apartment data from NYS Homes & Community Renewal

Accounting for the 73,299 actual recipients (66,578 SCRIE/DRIE, and 6,721 Mitchell Lama), the eligible but not enrolled population was estimated to be 57,015. Neighborhoods with a high concentration of households that are eligible for, but not enrolled in, the Rent Freeze Program have a high number of preferential rent units.

Source: 2016 rent-stabilized apartment data from NYS Homes & Community Renewal.
Note: Recipients reported by neighborhood (sub-borough area) are limited to the DOF-administered SCRIE and DRIE benefits. HPD-administered Mitchell Lama SCRIE benefits are excluded, so the total eligible not enrolled population displayed above is 45,623.

Borough Snapshots

Throughout the past 5 years, there are some borough level distinctions in trends with enrollment in the SCRIE and DRIE programs:

• In Manhattan, total Rent Freeze enrollment increased 12.8%, from 19,991 in 2014 to 22,559 in 2018. Manhattan had the city’s largest share of Rent Freeze enrollees, 32.9%
• In Brooklyn, total Rent Freeze enrollment increased 19.9%, from 16,633 in 2014 to 19,944 in 2018. Brooklyn had the city’s second-largest share of Rent Freeze enrollees, 29.1%.
• In Queens, total Rent Freeze enrollment increased 13.1%, from 12,424 in 2014 to 14,047 in 2018. Queens had the city’s third-largest share of Rent Freeze enrollees, 20.5%.
• In the Bronx, total Rent Freeze enrollment decreased 2.5%, from 11,836 in 2014 to 11,535 in 2018. The Bronx had the city’s fourth-largest share of Rent Freeze enrollees, 16.8%.
• In Staten Island, total Rent Freeze enrollment increased 20.7%, from 435 in 2014 to 525 in 2018. Staten Island had the city’s smallest share of Rent Freeze enrollees, 0.8%.

See below for a program specific breakout of these trends over time.

For additional analysis, explore the complete report available here: 2018 Report on the New York City Rent Freeze Program.