NYC Rent Freeze Program is Under the Radar

If you are over the age of 62 and make less than $50,000 per year, you may be able to enroll in SCRIE, the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption Program, which can freeze seniors’ rent at a third of their income and relieves them from future rent increases. The City of New York pays for the difference in rent by giving landlords credits for their property tax bills.

NBC reports that many seniors who might be eligible don’t even know about the program. A similar rent freeze program, DRIE, is aimed at New Yorkers with disabilities. People enrolled in the programs must reapply each year to ensure they don’t earn more than $50,000 per year. You can find more information on the DRIE program here, and on the SCRIE program here.

Apartments (Astoria Park), photo credit Dean Hall, via Flickr/Creative Commons license.

Clare Doyle

Clare Doyle is a graduate of the M.A. program in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, UK. She also holds a Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Studies as well as a B.A. in Archaeology and History from University Dublin, Ireland. She has worked for 30 years in library reference publishing in New York. Clare is the Vice President of Green Shores NYC, a non-profit group that advocates for a cleaner, greener and more connected waterfront in Astoria and Long Island City