ALERT: SCRIE Survey for Seniors

Printable Verison for this Alert note: acrobat format

Survey in several languages
     Click here for SCRIE Survey in English
     Click here for SCRIE Survey in Spanish
     Click here for SCRIE Survey in Chinese
     Click here for SCRIE Survey in Korean
     Click here for SCRIE Survey in Russian

ACTION ALERT
JUNE 23, 2016

LiveOn NY Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE)/
Senior Rent Freeze Program Survey

This survey is crucial to show the need for capping rents at 1/3 to further our work.
Please complete survey by July 22, 2016

• LiveOn NY and Enterprise Community Partners have released a report documenting that substantial numbers of older New Yorkers on the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE)/Senior Rent Freeze Program (hereinafter SCRIE) who are still paying over 50% of their income in rent. SCRIE freezes the rents of senior households living in rent regulated housing who are paying over one-third of their income in rent. Click Here to view the report.

• Cap all rents at one-third of income: One of the major recommendations is that NYC establish a program where all seniors on SCRIE pay no more than one-third of their income in rent. This would be an important step forward in ensuring that thousands of older New Yorkers in rent regulated apartments could continue to afford them and have money for other daily needs.

• Help us strengthen the SCRIE program: Filling out this survey will help make the SCRIE program for seniors a better program.

Instructions

• In order to move this effort forward, we would greatly appreciate as many seniors as possible to out this survey. It is brief and can be filled out by hand or online at www.liveon-ny.org. Filling it out online saves us a lot of time as we will have to enter all surveys filled out on paper into the database manually.

• The survey is available in several languages.

Click here for SCRIE Survey in English
Click here for SCRIE Survey in Spanish
Click here for SCRIE Survey in Chinese
Click here for SCRIE Survey in Korean
Click here for SCRIE Survey in Russian

• To fill it out by hand, you can simply print this survey out and distribute it for seniors to take. If filled out by hand, please mail completed surveys in bulk to SCRIE Survey, LiveOn NY, 49 W.45th Street, 7th floor, NY, NY 10036

• Anonymous survey – We only ask for your general demographic information, no names or any identifying information.

• For questions or comments on this survey, contact Bobbie Sackman, Director of Public Policy at 212-398-6565x226 or bsackman@liveon-ny.org or Andrea Cianfrani, Deputy Director of Public Policy at 212-398-6565x233 or acianfrani@liveon-ny.org.

• Please complete surveys by Friday July 22, 2016.

Thank you! This survey is crucial to our work to make SCRIE a better program.

MEDIA FEATURE: A way to help seniors afford their rents

BY JUDI KENDE AND BOBBIE SACKMAN
MAY 26, 2016

No one who has worked their whole life should struggle to afford the most basic necessities in their elder years. Yet every day too many seniors in our city are forced to make terrible choices between paying rent, buying food, filling prescriptions and other necessities.

New York City’s affordable housing crisis is becoming more pronounced, with rents rising at an unprecedented pace. For low-income older adults, this is especially scary as incomes are fixed or decline with age. For example, Social Security beneficiaries did not receive a cost-of-living adjustment this year, even as rents continue to rise.

Today, one out of three single New York seniors pays more than half of his or her income on housing, and one unexpected expense could result in a missed rent payment and eviction. This problem is only expected to grow as New York City’s senior population increases by an estimated 40 percent between 2010 and 2040. The need to help ensure older adults have an affordable home has never been greater.

Fortunately, we have a program in New York City specifically designed to help seniors afford their rents. The Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption program, or SCRIE, freezes rents for low-income seniors living in rent stabilized apartments. The landlord receives a refundable tax credit making up the difference between what is paid by the household and the legal rent.

Right now, unfortunately, the program is not effectively addressing the full challenge of affordable senior housing – but with a few modifications it could provide a true safety net for seniors.

Our first recommendation is for the city to create a more robust, sustained public awareness campaign to ensure all those who qualify for SCRIE are enrolled. Currently only 43 percent of people who are eligible use the program, largely due to a lack of awareness and barriers to applying, such as language.

Our second recommendation is for rents under SCRIE to be capped at one third of the household’s income. Today, the average SCRIE enrollee has an annual income of just $16,504. Because of the program’s design, rents are frozen when seniors enter the program, but for many, this freeze occurs after rents have already escalated far beyond their means. As a result, a shocking one-third of seniors enrolled in SCRIE are paying more than 70 percent of their incomes on rent, leaving them with an average of only $183 left over per month to pay for all other needs, including food and medicine.

Increasing enrollment and capping rents will add to the program’s cost. However, the cost of doing nothing is even greater. When senior households pay too much on rent, this often leads to unhealthy outcomes, like skipping meals or doctor visits. In 2014, The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University found that “on average, severely rent-burdened households … spend more than 40 percent less on food than households living in housing they can afford.” Seniors that are housing insecure are often more vulnerable to abuse. And older adults who are unable to afford their housing often enter higher levels of care such as nursing homes purely because they have nowhere else to go, at enormous cost to the public.

Additionally, SCRIE can support the city’s efforts to preserve affordable housing by keeping seniors in their rent-regulated apartments. The recommendations we outline can help make it a powerful tool to curb the loss of stabilized units across all five boroughs because it prevents unit turnover and allows long-time residents to remain in their community after retirement. This is a win-win for Mayor Bill de Blasio’s housing plan and older New Yorkers.

We should all agree that our communities are better off when our elders have an affordable place to live. We already have a tool at our fingertips to help thousands of seniors who are living in rent-regulated housing. We just need the will to make these changes.

Judi Kende is vice president and New York market leader at Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., a national organization that creates, preserves and advocates for affordable housing linked to good schools, jobs, transit and health care. Bobbie Sackman is the director of public policy at LiveOn NY, a nonprofit organization recognized as a leader in making New York State a better place to age. LiveOn NY's Affordable Senior Housing Coalition works to increase the availability of affordable housing for older adults. Read more in Enterprise and LiveOn’s latest report, Reducing Rent Burden for Elderly New Yorkers.

MEDIA: Freeze rents for older New Yorkers: advocates

Proposed change would cost city $324M a year in forgone tax revenue
May 17, 2016 11:28AM

Terry Ludwig, President & CEO, Partners & Chair of Enterprise Community Partners

A pair of organizations advocating for New York’s senior citizens will issue a report Tuesday calling for a sweeping rent freeze for the city’s aged residents.

Enterprise Community Partners, an affordable housing nonprofit, and LiveOn NY, a nonprofit advocate for seniors, are calling for the city to hold rents for qualifying seniors at 33 percent of income.

If enacted, the change would reduce the city’s tax take by about $324 million a year.

An alternate proposal, to set the level at 50 percent of income, would cost $225 million.

The groups proposed changes to the city’s Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption program, which gives landlords tax abatements to cover the cost of subsidizing seniors’ rent. The program currently freezes enrollees’ rent at the level they’re at at the time of enrollment, often far higher than the 33 percent or even the 50 percent level, Politco reported.

In addition, as many as 80,000 of the city’s seniors aren’t enrolled in the program, simply because they’ve never heard of it, according to the city’s Department of Finance, which manages the program. By the time they do enroll, their rents have often risen faster than seniors’ fixed incomes.

The program currently costs the city about $137 million a year. The DOF said in a statement it would back the proposed changes. A vote by state legislature would be required to alter the rules. [Politco] – Ariel Stulberg

ALERT: City Budget Final Stretch - Contact City Council and tell them “DON’T FORGET FUNDING FOR SENIORS!”

Printable Verison for this Alert note: acrobat format
Supportive Services for Older Adults, FY 2017 Budget Priorities note: acrobat format

ACTION ALERT
MAY 20, 2016

LiveOn NY’s 21st CITY HALL ADVOCACY DAY IS A HUGE SUCCESS
BECAUSE OF EACH ONE OF YOU PARTICIPATING!

OVER 350 OLDER ADULTS AND STAFF FROM 130 SENIOR CENTERS, NORCs, AND
CASE MANAGEMENT AGENCIES MET WITH 45 COUNCILMEMBER OFFICES – AMAZING!

IT’S IMPORTANT TO KEEP IN CONTACT WITH YOUR COUNCILMEMBERS
WITH THE MESSAGE – “DON’T FORGET FUNDING FOR SENIORS!”

What is happening:

• We are hearing that the city budget will done by around June 6th, two weeks earlier than usual. This makes it really important that seniors call their Councilmember immediately. Calls should be made to the 250 Broadway office because that’s where the Councilmember and their budget staff are during the budget process
• Click here to see the attached handout on the budget. You will see some changes. When the budget gets down to the wire, it’s necessary to narrow down priorities. We also included the 3 special initiatives as your agencies depend upon this funding for core programs. 

What you can do to make a difference: Please ask seniors, staff and board members to call your Councilmember offices as soon as possible.  Click here to find the phone number of your Councilmember. 

The message is:

“DON’T FORGET FUNDING FOR SENIORS!”

"No olvides fondos para la personas de la tercera edad!"

"請不要忘記撥款給我們耆老 !"

For further information, please contact Bobbie Sackman, Director of Public Policy, (212) 298-6565 x226 or bsackman@liveon-ny.org or Andrea Cianfrani, Deputy Director of Public Policy, (212) 398-6565 x233 or acianfrani@liveon-ny.org 

LiveOn NY – Making New York a Better Place to Age

MEDIA: Senior advocates urge overhaul of underused rent freeze program

Bobbie Sackman. (LiveOn NY)

By: SALLY GOLDENBERG
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Publication & Publisher: Capital NewYork

A coalition advocating for elderly New Yorkers will issue a report Tuesday calling on the de Blasio administration to overhaul an underused city program that provides rent relief for senior citizens — changes that would cost the administration several hundred million dollars.

The 17-page report, compiled by affordable housing organization Enterprise Community Partners and nonprofit LiveOn NY and provided to POLITICO, calls for City Hall to freeze rents for qualifying seniors at 33 percent of their income. The change would reduce costs for many tenants and would cost the city an estimated $324 million a year in foregone property tax revenue.

As part of the 46-year-old program, Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE), City Hall gives property tax abatements to participating landlords to make up for the income they are losing.

The agency that administers the program, the Department of Finance, recently said that nearly 80,000 seniors who qualify are not enrolled, often because they do not know about it. By the time seniors sign up for the rent break, they are often already paying more than a third of their incomes on rent.

"I think there needs to be an understanding that a fixed income is a fixed income. Most older adults tend to become poorer as they get older, because their income doesn't buy as much as the cost of living increases. This means that there are those older New Yorkers who have to pay their rent and are indeed choosing between food, medication and other daily needs," Bobbie Sackman of LiveOn NY said in an interview. "This is an opportunity for the city to say to older New Yorkers, 'We're going to make sure that you have the peace of mind and the safety net in terms of affordable housing.'"

A typical senior who participates in the program has an annual income of $16,504, and more than 26,000 SCRIE recipients take in less than that — $11,000 per year, on average — which leaves them with $183 a month in discretionary cash, the report found.

The city's senior population is growing as life expectancies climb. More than 100,000 single seniors currently spend at least half of their income on housing costs, a share that in housing terms gets them classified as "severely rent-burdened," according to a report released by the Citizens Budget Commission last fall.

Freezing rents for SCRIE enrollees at half their income would cost the city less — $225 million instead of $324 million. The current program costs about $137 million a year, according to the study.

A change to the program would require legislative approval in Albany — a hostile political climate for the mayor, and one where he has had mixed success in furthering his agenda.

In an emailed statement, the city Department of Finance said it would back the changes suggested in the report.

"SCRIE is a priority program of the Department of Finance and for the city. In the last two years, we have initiated and supported a range of new rent freeze legislation to raise the income limit, to extend the renewal process, to create new rules for benefit takeover and we want to see this pass as well," the agency said.

The rent caps suggested in the analysis are included in legislation that has been introduced in both houses of the state Legislature.

"This is our bill that would allow renters back into the rent freeze program at their old, frozen rent after losing the benefit for one lease term because of a spike in income, but later re-qualify," the agency added.

Under the current law, seniors who fall out of the program re-enter at a higher rate.

The report also calls on the administration to launch a television and subway ad campaign to boost enrollment.

Sackman said she had asked city officials, to no avail, to tack on a mention of SCRIE in a $1 million ad campaign to tout a rent freeze last year.

"It was a missed opportunity," she said.

The report comes two months after de Blasio partnered with senior advocates, namely the AARP, to push through zoning changes intended to create more below-market-rate housing throughout the city. At the time, he acknowledged SCRIE is underused and said he wanted to fix that.

"The number of severely rent-burdened seniors living on less than a shoestring budget is appalling," Judi Kende of Enterprise said. "A SCRIE rollback is critical, because it will improve outcomes for the elderly by allowing them to afford rent as well as food and medicine, and it will prevent eviction, which has a huge social and economic cost."