Rents Set to Go Up for 2 Million New Yorkers

“When you fall below the real cost line, and then you have a period of hyper inflation, how is this any kind of good?” he said. “No matter how big of an increase Adams does, it won’t be enough.”

Peter Madden, the executive director of Westbeth Artists Housing, which has about 383 apartments in the West Village, the vast majority of which are rent stabilized, acknowledged the pressures facing property owners.

But he also said rent stabilization is the “largest, best affordable housing program the city has.”

At Westbeth, which also receives some subsidies from the city, rents on stabilized homes range from less than $1,000 to $2,300 for a three-bedroom.

“If not for rent stabilization, I don’t know how folks would do it,” Mr. Madden said.

For some tenants, rent stabilization is a lifeline, particularly as the city experiences one of the most brutal rental landscapes in recent memory during a rebound from the worst of the pandemic.

The 2021 survey found that one-third of New York City tenants spend more than half of their income on rent. For them, looming increases will force difficult choices about where else to cut back on spending.

“A rent increase this year for me would be like $80 more each month,” said Chen Ren Ping, 65, who shares a rent-stabilized apartment in Chinatown he has lived in since 2004. “If we didn’t have to pay those $80, we would eat better, our lives would be better, we would have an improved quality of life.”

Mr. Chen said he earns about $794 a month in social security payments. But he said his half of the rent for the two-bedroom apartment is $800, so he does repairs around the neighborhood to supplement his income.