ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — With little time left in the 2025 legislative session, New York State lawmakers joined housing advocates at the Capitol on May 28 to push for a package of housing bills aimed at expanding rent stabilization statewide and strengthening assistance programs for seniors and people with disabilities. Amid rising housing costs, proposals would adjust income eligibility, redefine qualifications, and clearly inform tenants about available assistance.

At back-to-back press conferences, Democratic Assemblymembers and State Senators pushed to modernize the law and overhaul existing programs as rent costs and evictions rise. The Rent Emergency Stabilization for Tenants Act, (S4659A/A4877A) would change the rent stabilization laws dating back decades, giving local governments more tools to address housing affordability in their communities. Sponsored by Senate Housing Chair Brian Kavanagh and Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha, the REST Act would update the Emergency Tenant Protection Act.

Today, it only stabilizes the rent in pre-1974 buildings that have six or more units, requiring municipalities to conduct expensive and inaccurate vacancy studies to prove a local housing emergency. “More than half a century later, that doesn’t make sense,” Kavanagh said. “When they wrote that provision, it was 1973.”

The REST Act would let cities, towns, and villages outside New York City declare a housing emergency and adopt rent stabilization measures without proving that the local rental vacancy rate is 5% or less. It would expand eligibility to buildings constructed within the past 15 years on a rolling basis and cover smaller buildings that are more common upstate. Localities could declare an emergency based on publicly available statistics on homelessness, rent burdens, and housing quality, rather than relying on vacancy studies.

“New York State is the only state in the country that requires a vacancy study to be a condition for declaring a housing emergency,” Shrestha said. “We have so much publicly available data that makes it pretty obvious where a housing emergency exists, where the supply of affordable units is low, where the rent burden is high.”

The bill has support from 11 state senators and 16 assemblymembers, with cities like Albany, Hudson, Kingston, Newburgh, and Poughkeepsie passing resolutions backing it.

At a separate rally, lawmakers, including Kavanagh, unveiled a package of bills aiming to fix four existing housing assistance programs for vulnerable New Yorkers. Led in the Senate and Assembly the chairs of the committees on Housing and Aging—Kavanagh, State Sen. Cordell Cleare, and Assemblymembers Rebecca Seawright and Linda Rosenthal—would overhaul four key programs:

• The Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption
• The Disability Rent Increase Exemption
• The Senior Citizen Homeowners Exemption
• The Disabled Homeowners Exemption

This package of bills was designed to upgrade those programs, offering housing assistance and tax relief to seniors and people with disabilities. They freeze rent for eligible tenants and reduce property taxes for qualifying homeowners, but advocates said they’re nonetheless ineffective at keeping eligible seniors and disabled New Yorkers in their homes, at least in part because of inflation.

“The thresholds for qualifying have been stuck for more than a decade,” Kavanagh explained. “Although these are important programs, for many people, they leave participants heavily rent burdened.”

Kavanagh also sponsors S1457A/A5344, which would raise the maximum income limit for all four programs from $50,000 to $67,000 per year and index future increases to inflation.

S2451A/A7729 would let local governments cap rent payments for SCRIE and DRIE participants at one-third of the household’s income, rather than simply freezing rent at a potentially unaffordable rate. The current cap is higher in many cases.

Senator Cleare’s bill, S3563/A2367, would expand DRIE eligibility by allowing other household members besides just the disabled person to qualify their household for benefits. Recognizing that family members are frequently caregivers, the bill lets the parents or guardians of disabled individuals apply.

Senator Kevin Parker’s S4252 would make it easier for senior citizens to restart SCRIE benefits after temporary periods of ineligibility, maintaining continuous support in case their income levels fluctuate.

S2534/A7851 would standardize how tenant rent payments are calculated under SCRIE and DRIE, basing them on either the original amount they were paying when they first became eligible or two years before their application is approved. This would prevent unexpected rent increases because of delays in processing applications.

S561 would make landlords notify tenants on every rent bill that they may be eligible for SCRIE or DRIE programs.

S3742A/A1563A would mandate that information about these assistance programs be included with all lease agreements to promote transparency.

S5280/A824 would require local governments to provide information about tax abatement programs in multiple languages, improving access for non-English speakers.

Reforms could double participation in the program through expanded eligibility and improved outreach. Unlike many housing initiatives, the senior and disability program reforms wouldn’t require new state funding. By authorizing localities to adopt updated benefits through expanded tax abatements to landlords and tax reductions for homeowners, “There’s no cost to the state,” according to Kavanagh. He pointed out that these programs already support about 100,000 households in New York City.

The legislative package on housing has support from a diverse coalition including AARP, LiveOn NY, United Tenants of Albany, and the Housing Justice for All coalition. But critics argue that rent controls discourage new construction and lower the quality of existing units. Some landlords contend that expanded regulations would harm smaller property owners. They also argue that freezing rent wouldn’t address the root causes of the housing crisis, like limited supply and high property taxes.

Assembly Housing Chair Rosenthal seemed to agree. “New York State is facing a severe housing crisis, driving thousands of tenants to financial ruin and displacement. It’s a combination of skyrocketing rents, stagnant wages, and a shortage of truly affordable housing that means that working-class New Yorkers are leaving.”

Still, Rosenthal noted that recent wins in the housing sector—like a Housing Access Voucher Program pilot and expanded legal aid—represented changes “just around the edges.” She said they fell short of the kinds of necessary structural reforms in the REST Act.

Rosenthal and Kavanagh took part in both press conferences. Take a look at her remarks from both below:

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