NYCHA Owes Tenants $190K After Suit Alleged Illegally High Rents

ASTORIA, QUEENS — Rose Middleton was living in the Astoria Houses, a development managed by the New York City Housing Authority, for nearly two decades when the agency unexpectedly increased her rent by more than double — from $813 to $1,847 for the unit that she shared with her daughter, grandson, and elderly mother.

Eight months of “pain and suffering” followed, a 2020 lawsuit contends.

NYCHA continued to raise Middleton’s rent above the legally required 30-percent-of-income cap and threaten eviction — even after Middleton and her daughter both lost their jobs — despite rent miscalculations that the agency acknowledged but didn’t fix, according to documents.

“I hope fewer tenants will have to [fear] being at risk of eviction for thousands of dollars due in rent overcharges,” Middleton said.

The hope could be one step closer to reality after Middleton and a group of NYCHA tenants won a lawsuit against the agency in July. NYCHA will have to fork over $190,000 in rent overcharge fees, and reform its rent adjustment system, according to a settlement agreement.

In the next six months, NYCHA has to change its rent readjustment and eviction operations in order to review all rent reduction requests within 60 days and provide written communication with tenants throughout a case, the settlement agreement states. The agency also can’t sue or begin eviction proceedings with tenants who are in the midst of rent readjustment processes, or tenants who submitted a rent complaint, per the terms of the settlement.

Luis A. Henriquez Carrero, director of litigation at Manhattan Legal Services, the organization representing the tenants in this lawsuit, said that these changes will benefit more than 400,000 public housing residents.

In a statement to Patch from NYCHA, the agency said it “had been working on improving its interim recertification process [the process for reporting income changes for rent adjustment] prior to this lawsuit, and has agreed to update forms and notices to inform residents of the changes, train staff, and create a centralized public housing quality control function to review rent calculations.”

These benefits, however, were not afforded to Middleton, and other residents involved in the lawsuit.

Fearing eviction and homelessness as a NYCHA tenant

In February 2019, Middleton got a letter from NYCHA stating that the agency might begin her eviction process because she didn’t verify her family’s income, which is required of tenants.

This confused Middleton, who had already sent in her income documents for 2018, and wasn’t expecting to submit 2019 documentation until July, the suit contends.

She got in touch with the Astoria Houses about the letter, and was told to submit her current income, which she did, even though the timing was unusual. Her income totaled $71,122.42 at the time, records show.

Middleton didn’t hear back from NYCHA for seven months, during which time she felt in “limbo,” the lawsuit states.

Then, on Sept. 11, 2019, she went to the Astoria House’s management office to follow up about the eviction proceedings letter and the unusual income verification from earlier in the year. At that time, the agency increased her monthly rent by more than double — to $1,847 per month —effective several weeks later on Oct. 1, records show.

Two weeks later, Middleton went back to the management office and submitted a letter challenging the rent increase, indicating that her rent should have been between $1,300.00 and $1,500.00 based on income, and deductions, including child care expenses, according to the complaint.

She was told that the housing manager at the Astoria Houses would look over the claim, butstill hadn’t received a response more than a month later in November, despite submitting more income documents. That month, Middleton became “unable to pay her overestimated rent,” the suit states.

The following month, the housing manager gave Middleton a document stating that she agreed with the denial of her rent increase challenge — Middleton, however, had never gotten a denial from NYCHA, according to the lawsuit.

She immediately contacted the NYCHA Borough Office in Queens to dispute the document. In January, Middleton lost her job, and had a meeting with the borough office, where officials acknowledged that her rent calculation from September didn’t correctly include child care deductions, which amounted to about $7,800, records show.

NYCHA, however, didn’t retroactively apply the deductions to Middleton’s outstanding rent fees, the complaint states.

In February, NYCHA increased her rent again, and sent her a Chronic Rent Delinquency notice, according to the suit.

Fearing eviction, Middleton applied for a rental assistance grant to cover the full $8,418.37 that she allegedly owed. She was approved for the grant, the complaint shows, but she would likely have to repay at least part of the money, even though it was based on the rent amount from 2019 that she disputed.

In May, after continually updating NYCHA about changes in her and her daughter’s unemployment status, Middleton’s rent was once again “inexplicably” raised to $2,008.00.

Despite multiple requests to adjust her rent after changes to her household income, Middleton’s rent was continually raised by NYCHA and she was threatened with eviction proceedings — a process that prompted her to agree to pay back grant money to avoid losing her apartment, and put her at risk of homelessness prior to the settlement, according to the suit.

"It is hard enough being poor in New York City; the last thing tenants in public housing need are illegal rent overcharges and unnecessary hurdles that threaten to destabilize their entire lives,” Legal Services NYC attorney Edward Josephson said.