Queens Tenants Rally Against Rent Hikes As RGB Public Hearing Get Underway
A rent freeze is the minimum goal, tenants say as June 25 Rent Guidelines Board final decision approaches.
The Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) began its public hearings at the Jamaica Performing Arts Center in Queens. More than 100 tenants rallied outside the hearing to call for a rent freeze for the 2.4 million rent-stabilized tenants in the city, including 440,000+ Queens tenants, on both one- and two-year leases. The rally was organized by NYS Tenants Bloc and CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities.
Many of the tenants, speakers, and activists took the position that a “freeze” is the bare minimum, calling for a rent rollback to address the damage caused by years of rent increases and insisting that New Yorkers deserve the right to dignified, affordable housing. Kristen Kiernan, a rent-stabilized resident of Astoria and a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, explained:
“If we freeze the rent as it is right now, still half of New Yorkers are spending more than a third of their income on rent. We’re freezing it at an unaffordable level, and housing is a human right. We should not be making these decisions to mitigate risks to the landlord when everybody should have a constitutional right to housing. It’s constitutionally protected for landlords to have a right to fair profits. And this is not something that tenants are protected by. So that’s why the Rent Guidelines Board exists in the form that it does, because landlords are constitutionally protected to have the right to profit.”
Similarly, Wilson Alvarez, a Queens resident and Colombian immigrant who has lived in Ozone Park since 1987, said that if the rent rises any further, he will eventually have to leave the city he has called home for decades. “My twin already moved to Florida,” said Alvarez, citing the cost of living as the main reason for the move.
According to the CAAAV and the NYS Tenants Bloc: “Rent stabilization exists to protect the working people of New York; 37% of very low-income NYC households live in rent stabilized housing. While the state’s biggest lobbies— the Real Estate Board of New York, New York Apartment Association, and the Small Property Owners of New York—have been fighting to overturn and strip back rent-stabilization, tenants are organizing to ensure the policy serves its true purpose: to protect New Yorkers and keep them in New York.
“It is incredibly important that this Board uses its power to protect New Yorkers,” Genevive Brand expressed to the board. “They need to step in and protect people at a time of incredible increases in the cost of living.”
Six of the RGB’s nine members have been appointed this year by Mayor Zohran Mamdani after he made freezing the rent a key part of his successful mayoral campaign last year.
Under the previous Eric Adams mayoral administration, the RGB raised rents four years in a row, totaling 12%. Despite the increases, many tenants still reported poor living conditions, including no heat or water, roach and rat infestations, and no improvements to their buildings.
During their preliminary vote in May, the RGB recognized both the data and the power of organized tenants by adopting preliminary ranges of 0-2% for one-year leases and 0-4% for two-year leases. For the first time in the board’s history, the RGB has proposed a rent freeze on two-year leases. Freezing the rent was one of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s most popular campaign promises.
“The people of New York…voted for a mayor whose public platform revolved around freezing rent, and we made it very clear at the ballot box how we wanted the guideline board hearing to go. The fact that they’re even considering a 2% increase in their preliminary vote is outrageous,” Kiernan continued.
Samantha Kattan, tenant organizer a democratic socialist who is running for District 37 Assembly, also testified at the hearing. When asked about the cost-of-living crisis New Yorkers are facing, she explained, “There are a couple of bills already introduced in the state legislature that would do that. One is the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, which would help tenants gain ownership of their building. The other would create a social housing development authority that would be able to fund, finance, and build affordable housing.” Kattan cited Mitchell-Lama as a model she wants to use to build affordable, more equitable housing for New Yorkers.
As for what a rent freeze would mean to working-class residents, New Yorkers can point to three annual rent freezes under former Mayor Bill de Blasio and the difference it made in their everyday lives:
“(The rent freeze) made it possible for me to not worry as much about what my expenses would look like after rent, compared with the last four years, over 12% of cumulative rent hikes,” Kierman said. “A rollback would be even better. It’s not on the table, according to the Rent Guidelines Board, but their own data show they have consistently overestimated landlord expenses at tenants’ expense, and it should be something they consider. At the same time, so much more is necessary, so much more is possible… it’s really important that we meet each other, that we learn how to organize beyond these hearings, and that we can create a really strong movement for affordable housing,” Kiernan finished.
Three more public hearings will be held in the Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn before the final Rent Guidelines Board vote which will take place on June 25th at El Museo del Barrio in Manhattan.
This article was collectively written by members of DocBloc’s Artist as Citizen Journalist Initiative which brings together theatre artists and journalists to share in civic reporting and the growing need for community-based storytelling.The ACJ initiative tests a hybrid model of reporting and performance, positioning theatre artists as civic witnesses and collaborators in local journalism. To learn more visit docbloc.org or connect on Instagram @docblocprojects.