Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean that it’s right.

One of the hardest parts about renting in NYC is that you are a dime a dozen. Your landlord could say, «I could easily rent this apartment for $3000 more than I’m renting it to you for,» and they wouldn’t even be bluffing. There is a limited amount of housing stock, and there is no shortage of people looking for housing at any given moment. When you get a good deal on an apartment, you want to hold onto it as long as possible, but that good deal doesn’t always last. There aren’t a lot of landlords in New York City who are willing to rent you an apartment for the same price for years and years. They want to make as much money from their rentals as possible, and they are willing to raise the rent as much as they possibly can to get it. 

Some landlords will raise the rent for the explicit purpose of forcing a tenant out. They know they probably can’t pay nearly 50% more in rent than they’re already paying, so they increase the rent exponentially to drive out the undesirable tenant. 

The tenant in this story doesn’t think she’s undesirable: just unlucky. That hasn’t stopped her landlord from increasing her rent so much that she can’t afford to stay in her current place.