One thought on “Assembly Member Kellner’s Response to Governor Cuomo’s State of the State Address”
Like the minimum wage, SCRIE (Senior Citizens Rent Increase Exemption) is frozen at a rate determined in an economy of a long-ago decade. It is time for a reassessment and a tying of that rate to the cost of living in the city in which the resident would apply for it. (e.g., New York City or Buffalo) At present the income cap is $29,000 per year. But in New York stabilized rents can rise to over $2,000/month, which can effectively leave seniors with a balance of $4,000 for all other expenses, including utilities, medical, food, and I think I have exhausted the $4,000 already. Please do something to aid seniors by raising the income cap on SCRIE and tying it for at least 10 years to the cost of living rate increases in the senior citizen’s city of residence. Another consideration: a person who has a small retirement pension over and above Social Security would be absolutely barred from receiving SCRIE. I get a small pension of $600/month or a whopping $7200/year. Combined with my tax and medicare-reduced Social Security of (net) $27,334 I can be easily crushed with a Board-approved increase of 5%. If you’ve seen the headlines, the city’s rents are experiencing resistance from reduced personal incomes among the non-financial hires now moving into the city. They simply cannot afford the ultra-high rents in the five boroughs, but corporate landlords will bellow they are being impacted negatively by “low rents caused by the economy” and will, of course, seek a high rate of increase in stabilized rents. I urge you to use your best efforts to pass a law in Albany which will protect senior citizens from ever-increasing stabilized rates. As you are probably well aware, as the “baby boomers” pass away, there will be so much unoccupied housing stock in New York it will create a real-estate deflation unseen in more than 75 years. It is time for corporate landlords and individual landlords to tighten their belts for that future AND STOP DEVELOPING WHAT IS SOON TO BE UN-NECESSARY HOUSING. (Which is why they sell to Europeans who still live in Europe.–Does that make any sense at all?)
Like the minimum wage, SCRIE (Senior Citizens Rent Increase Exemption) is frozen at a rate determined in an economy of a long-ago decade. It is time for a reassessment and a tying of that rate to the cost of living in the city in which the resident would apply for it. (e.g., New York City or Buffalo) At present the income cap is $29,000 per year. But in New York stabilized rents can rise to over $2,000/month, which can effectively leave seniors with a balance of $4,000 for all other expenses, including utilities, medical, food, and I think I have exhausted the $4,000 already. Please do something to aid seniors by raising the income cap on SCRIE and tying it for at least 10 years to the cost of living rate increases in the senior citizen’s city of residence. Another consideration: a person who has a small retirement pension over and above Social Security would be absolutely barred from receiving SCRIE. I get a small pension of $600/month or a whopping $7200/year. Combined with my tax and medicare-reduced Social Security of (net) $27,334 I can be easily crushed with a Board-approved increase of 5%. If you’ve seen the headlines, the city’s rents are experiencing resistance from reduced personal incomes among the non-financial hires now moving into the city. They simply cannot afford the ultra-high rents in the five boroughs, but corporate landlords will bellow they are being impacted negatively by “low rents caused by the economy” and will, of course, seek a high rate of increase in stabilized rents. I urge you to use your best efforts to pass a law in Albany which will protect senior citizens from ever-increasing stabilized rates. As you are probably well aware, as the “baby boomers” pass away, there will be so much unoccupied housing stock in New York it will create a real-estate deflation unseen in more than 75 years. It is time for corporate landlords and individual landlords to tighten their belts for that future AND STOP DEVELOPING WHAT IS SOON TO BE UN-NECESSARY HOUSING. (Which is why they sell to Europeans who still live in Europe.–Does that make any sense at all?)