(1) Except as hereinafter provided, it shall accept elder or elderly households as residents in the housing projects;

(2) It may accept as residents in any housing unit one or more persons, related or unrelated by marriage. It may also accept as a resident in any dwelling accommodation or in any project, in the case of illness or other disability of an elder who is a resident in the dwelling accommodation or in the project, a person designated by the elder as the elder's live-in aide whose qualifications as a live-in aide are verified by the corporation, although the person is not an elder; provided that the person shall cease to be a resident therein upon the recovery of, or removal from the project of, the elder;

(3) It may rent or lease to an elder a dwelling accommodation consisting of any number of rooms as the corporation deems necessary or advisable to provide safe and sanitary accommodations to the proposed resident or residents without overcrowding; and

(4) Notwithstanding that the elder has no written rental agreement or that it has expired, so long as the elder continues to tender the usual rent to the corporation or proceeds to tender receipts for rent lawfully withheld, no action or proceeding to recover possession of the dwelling unit may be maintained against the elder, nor shall the corporation otherwise cause the elder to quit the dwelling unit involuntarily, demand an increase in rent from the elder, or decrease the services to which the elder has been entitled during hospitalization of the elder due to illness or other disability. [L 1997, c 350, pt of §2; am L 1998, c 212, §28; am L 2002, c 64, §4; am L 2003, c 3, §5]