Audit: City Paid Millions in Rent Subsidies to Dead People

A recent audit from city Controller John Liu discovered that the city had paid out $11.8 million through the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) program in recent years to nearly 4,000 dead people. Either their apartment owners or relatives had been cashing in on the oversight.

The SCRIE program helps low-income elderly tenants pay their rents. The program requires that owners or the family members of the deceased are supposed to notify the city within 30 days if participants move or die. Instead, the audit found that landlords of 3,801 tenants who were in the grave, some for as long as a decade, continued to cash in on the tax credits.

City officials say they've already recouped $3.3 million of the posthumous profit—and vowed to collect the rest as soon as possible. They say they had spotted some of the errors even before Liu flagged the screw-ups and began implementing safeguards to make sure this problem doesn't recur.