Somehow, progressive “help” for the little guy always winds up hurting him. The latest? A survey from the Community Housing Improvement Program. It shows that 75% of responding landlords, who manage rent-stabilized housing units in the city (there are around a million), have been forced to delay critical repairs — including on boilers and roofs.
That 2019 law hamstrung owners who need to raise rent in order to cover repair and improvement costs, and the earthquake it caused continues to ripple: 55% say they’re backing off security upgrades (a necessity in our crime-ridden city); 41% have stopped switching to LED lights, a pet project of the same Dems who backed the law; 26% are forgoing tech improvements to fuel efficiency in heat and hot water.
So renters in these units pay low rent but suffer consequences, as necessary but unaffordable repairs get postponed. Worse, an estimated 35,000 apartments stand vacant because repairs needed to rent them out now lie beyond the financial grasp of the landlord — further constricting housing supply and driving up prices, again hurting those who can least afford it.
And the ugly trend has only been supercharged by runaway inflation: 80% of CHIP’s members report that operating expenses have skyrocketed more than 15% since 2019, far above the legally allowable rent hikes.
When Albany passed the law, people capable of basic arithmetic predicted this would happen. Alas, they were right. And if this kind of legislation is how progressives “help,” who needs it?
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