Rent Controlled Tenants' Committee

The Rent Controlled Tenants Committee (RCTC) was formed in 2003 in response to the Maximum Base Rent (MBR) rent increase of 17.2% for 2004-2005, the highest for any MBC increase in the previous 28 years.

In 2010, Rent Controlled tenants face another high MBR increase of 12.9% despite the present economic crisis.

Although RC tenants have the lowest mean income of all regulated tenants in NYC, they have been subjected to the highest increases.

Since 1992, the cumulative Rent Controlled increases have amounted to 631% while Rent Stabilized increases have amounted to 366%.

The Rent Controlled Tenants Committee is presently considering a court case to challenge this high increase by the NYS Division of Housing & Community Renewal (DHCR).

For further info contact:

Tom Siracuse
Chair of the RCTC
phone: 212-874-2154
email: tomsiracuse@hotmail.com

RCTC Newsletter, January 2010

Thank you for calling your state legislators and the other officials to protest the NYS Division of Housing and Community Renewal's (DHCR) proposal to raise our Maximum Base Rent by 12.9%, despite the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression!

The unfairness of this proposal is exemplified when we compare our increase to the 6% increase set by the NYC Rent Guidelines Board for Rent Stabilized tenants even though the same period of time and the same type of buildings are used for both calculations.

Rent Controlled tenants have the lowest mean income of all renters and yet have been subjected to the highest increases over the years. These increases have caused a crisis for many Rent Controlled tenants who are not eligible for SCRIE (Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption) and who face the prospect of losing their homes because they can no longer afford their rents.

We have heard nothing from our legislators that the Rent Control Law will be reformed.

If a Rent Controlled tenant is presently paying $1,000 a month, the 12.9% MBR increase would mean that by January 2011, the rent would be $129 a month more. By the beginning of the next MBR increase in January 2013, the tenant will have paid out a total of $2,448 in rent increases. A Rent Stabilized tenant will have paid out less than half that amount.

The Rent Controlled Tenants Committee is retaining the experienced and sympathetic tenant lawyer, Robert E. Levy, Esq. to challenge DHCR's calculations in court.

We ask you to help us pay for the legal fees involved by sending our Committee a check payable to "Rent Controlled Tenants Committee" (do not make the check payable to RCTC). Any amount is appreciated.

Mail the check to:

RCTC
244 W. 74th Street, Apt. 5-C
New York, NY 10023

Please contact other rent controlled tenants. Thank you very much in this struggle to keep our homes.

Sincerely,
Tom Siracuse
phone: 212-874-2154
email: tomsiracuse@hotmail.com

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