“An estimated 158,214 households are eligible for SCRIE or DRIE—but only 67,132 are currently enrolled. That means nearly 57.6 percent of tenants who could be protected may still face avoidable rent hikes in the months ahead.”

An early evening games of dominoes at Serviam Gardens, an affordable housing complex for seniors in the Bedford Park neighborhood of the Bronx. (Adi Talwar)

For decades, Vincient Grillo, a 61-year-old lifelong New Yorker in Upper Manhattan, lived quietly in his family’s rent-controlled apartment. Like many older New Yorkers on fixed incomes, he worried about what would happen when his lease expired and his rent increased. 

“I was ready to pack my bags and leave,” he said. 

Thanks to the city’s Rent Freeze Program—which includes the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) and the Disability Rent Increase Exemption (DRIE)—Vincient’s story took a different turn. Connected through the Tenant Helpline to Outreach Specialist Michael Luat, he applied for the benefit with hands-on support. 

“I had given up. But Michael kept texting, even when I wasn’t responding. He never gave up on me,” Vincient recalled. Through the Rent Freeze Program, his rent was reduced $900 to $563, allowing him to remain in the apartment his family has called home since 1959. 

“This apartment is more than just four walls—it’s the only home I’ve ever known. It’s my safety net,” he said. “Without Rent Freeze, I wouldn’t have made it.” 

The Rent Guidelines Board recently approved new increases for tenants in rent-stabilized apartments. The most recent order applies to leases commencing on or after Oct. 1, 2025, through Sept. 30, 2026. If your lease renews during this time, a one-year lease may rise by 3 percent, while a two-year lease could increase by up to 4.5 percent. For many older adults and people with disabilities, those hikes come on top of already rising costs for groceries, medications, and utilities. 

But these increases are not inevitable. Through SCRIE and DRIE, tenants who qualify can lock in their rent at its current amount. Landlords receive a tax credit to cover the difference, while tenants gain long-term stability and peace of mind. Once enrolled, the benefit carries forward year after year through renewals. 

The challenge is that far too many eligible New Yorkers never apply. According to the most recent data, an estimated 158,214 households are eligible for SCRIE or DRIE—but only 67,132 are currently enrolled. That means nearly 57.6 percent of tenants who could be protected may still face avoidable rent hikes in the months ahead. 

At the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate, Robin Lee sees first-hand the frustration of tenants who have tried and failed to navigate complex systems. “When people tell us they’ve given up,” she said, “it’s our responsibility to make sure the system itself isn’t what’s standing in their way.” 

Navigating government paperwork is difficult even in the best of times. That’s why the NYC Mayor’s Public Engagement Unit (PEU), the NYC Office of the Taxpayer Advocate (OTA), and the NYC Department of Finance (DOF) are working together to ensure tenants like Vincent don’t fall through the cracks. 

As Jasmin Batista, who leads tenant outreach at the Public Engagement Unit, explains, her team’s approach starts on the ground: meeting people where they are—at their doors, on their phones, and in their neighborhoods. “No one should lose their home over bureaucracy,” she said. “Programs like Rent Freeze only work when people can actually access them.” 

Together, PEU, OTA, and DOF have helped thousands of New Yorkers apply or renew their Rent Freeze benefits. But thousands more remain eligible and unenrolled. If you are age 62 or older or living with a qualifying disability, rent a rent-stabilized apartment, and meet the income requirements, you may be eligible to freeze your rent before the rent increases take effect. 

At the Department of Finance, Commissioner Preston Niblack describes Rent Freeze as one of the city’s most effective tools for keeping people housed. Through partnerships with PEU and OTA, he said, “we’re cutting through red tape and reaching tenants who might otherwise never hear about these protections.” 

Help is available right now. You can call the PEU Rent Freeze Hotline at 929-252-7242, visit nyc.gov/rentfreeze, or get in-person assistance at a NYC Department of Finance office. Don’t wait. Freezing your rent today could save you thousands of dollars over the years ahead. More importantly, it could be the key to staying in the home you love. 

Programs like Rent Freeze don’t just shield people from rising costs—they protect dignity, independence, and the ability to age in place. At a time when affordability feels increasingly out of reach, that kind of stability has never been more important. 

Jasmin Batista is the outreach director for the Tenant Support Unit at the NYC Mayor’s Public Engagement Unit. Robin Lee is the taxpayer advocate at the NYC Office of the Taxpayer Advocate.

The post Opinion: As Rents Rise Again, Too Many Seniors Don’t Know They Can Freeze Theirs  appeared first on City Limits.

When he showed up at training camp in some of the best shape of his career, Wild forward Yakov Trenin admitted that his debut in Minnesota a season ago was less than he expected, and less than fans should have expected.

Minnesota Wild forward Yakov Trenin (13) is photographed during the team’s media day in St. Paul on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press).

He spoke then of a new attitude and approach to the season, and it was fair to assume providing more offense was his goal.

After a little more than one-fourth of his second season with the Wild, Trenin’s offensive numbers are roughly the same as a year ago, but he is turning some heads with an element of his game that some might not have anticipated from the tall, somewhat lanky, 28-year-old Russian.

After delivering eight hits in the Wild’s 3-0 win in Winnipeg on Sunday, Trenin is leading the NHL in that category, with 107 hits in his first 23 games this season.

Wild coach John Hynes, who was Trenin’s boss previously in Nashville, is seeing the player he once knew in Predators colors.

“The year that he’s having this year and the style of game he’s playing is more indicative of what he brings to a team and the value that he brings. So it’s good to see,” Hynes said following the team’s Tuesday morning practice at TRIA Rink.

Hynes has seen Trenin’s better physical shape translate into more impact on the ice.

“I would say stamina, I would say quickness. I think he’s a little bit lighter and leaner,” Hynes said. “I think he’s always in good shape, he’s just different. The adjustments he made in the offseason have paid dividends for him to be a little bit quicker. Now he’s a little quicker, stamina’s good. Now you can arrive on time, you can be physical. I think he’s a little more explosive.”

That strategic aggression manifested in the only goal the Wild would eventually need in Winnipeg. In the second period of a scoreless game, Trenin went hard at Jets forward Nino Niederreiter behind the home team’s net, delivered a hit, got the puck, then fed Wild rookie Danila Yurov for the goal that broke the ice.

The play left Trenin’s teammates impressed and smiling.

“You see the hits. You see the one that caused the first goal,” said Marcus Foligno, currently 11th in the league with 74 hits in 22 games. “Niederreiter coughs up the puck because he’s a little bit scared of what’s coming … and then the best part is (Trenin) hits him and he gets the puck back; it’s not like he blows (Niederreiter) up and he blows himself up. Seeing a lot of control out of him.”

The play reminded not only Hynes of the player he had in Nashville, but current teammates of their former Central Division foe before Trenin inked a four-year $14 million contract in Minnesota in the summer of 2024.

“I hated playing against him,” Wild defenseman Zach Bogosian said. “He finishes every check on the forecheck and then makes it tough on guys going back for the puck. So it’s good when he can set the tone that way, and it kind of bleeds into the group.”

Through his first 23 games this season, playing wing and some center on the third or fourth line primarily, Trenin has a goal and four assists.

Briefly

None of the Wild’s four currently injured forwards skated in Tuesday’s practice before the team boarded a charter for Wednesday night’s game in Chicago. Vinnie Hinostroza is expected to be out 4-6 weeks after suffering a lower body injury last Friday in Pittsburgh. Marco Rossi (lower) has not yet begun skating. Ryan Hartman (lower) skated on his own Tuesday but has yet to rejoin practice. Vladimir Tarasenko (lower) was sick and stayed away from the rink as a precaution.

Related Articles

Mats Zuccarello’s impact hard to miss at Wild surge continues

Wally is a Wall, as Wild blank Jets

After injury delay, Nico Sturm excited for his second Wild debut

Surging Wild dominate Pittsburgh start to finish

Good reviews, generally, for Danila Yurov as Wild’s top-line center

A federal judge ruled that OpenAI needs to turn over all its internal communications with lawyers about why it deleted two massive troves of pirated books from a notorious “shadow library” that the tech company is accused of using to train ChatGPT.

Manhattan Federal Court Magistrate Judge Ona Wang ruled Monday that the tech giant’s shifting reasons for deleting the data tanked any argument that those reasons could be protected by attorney-client privilege.

“OpenAI continues to assert that it did not willfully infringe Class Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works. A jury is entitled to know the basis for OpenAI’s purported good faith,” Wang wrote in her 28-page decision. “What matters is that OpenAI has put its state of mind at issue, and OpenAI may not selectively use attorney-client privilege to restrict Class Plaintiffs’ inquiry into evidence concerning OpenAI’s purported good faith in this way.”

The judge is overseeing a massive consolidated class-action lawsuit against Microsoft and  OpenAI, which includes the Daily News, affiliated newspapers at Tribune Publishing and MediaNews Group and other news outlets that are accusing the technology giant of copyright infringement.

Wang’s decision Monday centers on a group of plaintiffs that include the Authors Guild and a long list of best-selling writers like “A Game of Thrones” scribe George R.R. Martin and legal thriller author John Grisham. The authors allege that OpenAI used pirated books from the infamous online “LibGen” library, which two courts have ordered shut down over the past decade, to train its AI products, after an employee downloaded them in 2018.

During the discovery process, the plaintiffs found out that OpenAI deleted the two troves, called “Books1” and “Books2,” in 2022 — believed to contain more than 100,000 books — a year before any litigation began.

“At the time, OpenAI asserted that the datasets were deleted due to ‘non-use.’ These are the only training datasets that, according to OpenAI, have ever been deleted,” Wang wrote. “Then, when Class Plaintiffs sought discovery about the reasons for the deletion of the Books1 and Books2 datasets, OpenAI asserted attorney-client privilege. OpenAI’s position on whether the reasons for the deletion are privileged has shifted several times.”

Wang is ordering OpenAI to give the plaintiffs communications she’s already reviewed, all other written communications with the company’s in-house lawyers regarding the reasons the datasets were deleted, and all internal references to LibGen that OpenAI has previously redacted or withheld.

The Authors Guild and OpenAI’s legal teams did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

An OpenAI spokesperson told Law360, “We disagree with the ruling and intend to appeal.”

A former Minneapolis teacher and coach was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday in connection with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault of victims under 13 years old.

Aaron James Hjermstad (Courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Corrections)

Aaron James Hjermstad, 46, pleaded guilty in September to 12 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving victims under 13 years that took place between 2013 and 2021.

In addition to being sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years, Hjermstad must register as a predatory offender and will be on lifetime conditional release if he is ever paroled.

“My thoughts today are solely with the many victims in this case. What they endured as children is nothing short of horrifying,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said. “Mr. Hjermstad is being held accountable, and a sentence of this length removes the possibility of further harm at his hands for decades to come.”

The attorney’s office said Hjermstad had coached many of the children or one of their family members. Hjermstad worked as a physical education and health teacher at The Mastery School and a basketball coach at Hospitality House Youth Development and Harvest Best Academy.

At the time he was charged, he’d already been convicted for similar assaults against 3 other victims, but he fled the state before he was sentenced.

In December 2021 he was caught in Idaho during a traffic stop. Law enforcement officials found thousands of videos showing him assaulting children. Some of the videos were taken at his Brooklyn Center home including footage with the 12 victims which led to the additional charges.

Related Articles

Campbell’s IT chief on leave after lawsuit claims he said company’s food is for ‘poor people’

Minnesota, other states reach $7M settlement in rent-fixing case against major apartment manager in U.S.

Palace Theatre sues Wrecktangle Pizza for $1.6M over St. Paul restaurant

Maplewood gunman sentenced for shooting at car while kids cowered nearby

Jury convicts 2nd man in Coon Rapids triple murder