March 2, 2007
RENT STABILIZED
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Albany demo to squash rent hikes |
What a difference an administration makes.
Since last fall, Housing Works has been fighting the Pataki administration's Dickensian decision to force low-income people with HIV in supportive housing to contribute nearly all their meager income (e.g. SSI or Veteran's benefits) toward their rent, leaving them pennies to live on. The Spitzer administration has only been in Albany a short while but already things have changed dramatically: Newly appointed New York State Commissioner of the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance David Hansell announced on Tuesday that there will be no rent increases for people with HIV living in rent-subsidized, supportive housing. Housing Works will begin negotiating a settlement of the lawsuit it filed on behalf of the affected tenants in the coming weeks.
Hansell made the welcome declaration during an indoor Albany AIDS Awareness Day rally at the state capitol. Hundreds of PWAs greeted the news with cheers, applause, hugs and cell phone calls. "We're thrilled the new administration has decided to abandon this cruel and illegal policy," says Armen Merjian, the Housing Works senior staff attorney overseeing the lawsuit. "The good thing is that because of the injunction, all 2,200 people who would have been affected have been completely spared any rent increase in the months since the Pataki Administration's announcement."
$11 a day? No way!
The Pataki government, via the state's HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA), zealously pursued the rent hikes, which were scheduled to take effect on November 1, 2006 (Housing Works and co-counsel Matthew Brinckerhoff won a temporary injunction to keep that from happening). Formerly homeless people living with AIDS who receive income such as social security insurance or social security disability would have been required to contribute all of their income, except for $330, toward their rent. That left them $11 a day for everything else.
"I would have had to give up more than half of my monthly income of $710," says Michael Green, 55, a resident at Odyssey House Haven in Harlem. "How would I eat?" Many of the other 2,200 affected people would have seen their monthly income slashed by more than 50 percent. Although Green, who was bracing for another bout of homelessness, didn't make it to the Albany rally, he has lobbied there before. He said a prayer of thanks when he heard about Hansell's announcement. "I wasn't going to pay the increase. I was going to move in with my daughter till I found something else to do," he says.
Hansell is a former GMHC staffer who inherited the horrific HRSA policy. Even if Hansell hadn't proved an ally of people with HIV, he would have found himself in a tough fight: Federal law dictates that those receiving federal support cannot be subjected to paying more than 30 percent in rent.
More battles ahead
Despite Hansell's welcome announcement, there are two other unjust rent-related policies that AIDS advocates will be challenging this year.
There are still over 10,000 New Yorkers with HIV/AIDS in private-market apartments who have been giving over all of their income--other than $330 in public assistance--toward their rent. They struggle to survive on $11 per day without the help available in supportive housing: meals, caseworkers, supplemented utility payments and more. State Senator Tom Duane and Assembly member Debra Glick have introduced legislation that will cap rent costs at 30 percent for all low-income New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS in private market apartments.
"People should celebrate this victory today, but tomorrow we'll wake up and get back to work to make sure the [Duane and Glick] legislation passes," says Jennifer Flynn, executive director of the New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN).
The other issue involves Pataki's atrocious policy of counting disability checks for disabled children living in households already struggling with AIDS against the family's rent and public assistance budget. That flagrant violation of the law is the subject of Housing Works' lawsuit Melendez v. Wing, scheduled for oral argument in the New York Court of Appeals in May 2007. An intermediate appellate court has already unanimously found the policy illegal. Housing Works urges Governor Spitzer and Commissioner Hansell to reverse it immediately.
To help get the Sen. Duane/Rep. Glick legislation passed, contact NYCAHN's community organizer Cameron Craig at (718) 802-9540 x12. Also, ask him about NYCAHN's AIDS Housing Advocacy Day in Albany on Tuesday, March 20th .