New Yorkers keep winning. This time with a rent freeze. | Opinion

Joanne Grell was leading the charge.

As a sea of tenants in orange shirts filed into the El Museo del Barrio, she and other organizers with Community Action for Safe Apartments (CASA) were keeping the energy up with a series of chants that only ceased when New York City's Rent Guidelines Board finally began its meeting shortly after 7 p.m. on June 25.

"What do we want?" Grell, 63, asked tenants in a call-and-response chant where the meeting was taking place.

"Rent freeze!" the people responded.

The board ultimately voted not to raise rents on one- and two-year leases for the nearly 1 million rent-stabilized units in New York City, a major win for Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the tenants who elected him.

It's a moment Grell and her fellow renters had been working toward for years, and the latest development in the history of the fight for better housing conditions in New York City.

New York residents are pushing for better living conditions

Grell has lived in a rent-stabilized apartment in the Bronx for 24 years. She raised her two children, now a medical student and a filmmaker, in that apartment. Being able to pay the rent is a major reason why.

When Grell's children went off to college, she decided to take a class on community organizing, ultimately getting involved with CASA. As a tenant leader with the community group and a cochair of the New York State Tenant Bloc's Rent Freeze campaign, she has been organizing her fellow New Yorkers and pushing the city and state governments to finally consider renters in legislation.

"The only way I could have ever allowed my children to realize their dreams was to have an affordable rent," Grell told me.

A rent freeze, she said, would let her and her neighbors focus on other expenses like groceries, gas and medical bills.

For generations, tenants were overruled by the city's powerful real estate lobby. In 2025, renters helped elect Mamdani. On June 23, this mobilization of tenants helped deliver three decisive wins to progressives in Democratic primary elections. Now, they have achieved their goal – and, according to Grell, it's just the beginning.

New York City is becoming a place where everyday residents can enact real change where they live. In turn, they are working to inspire renters throughout the country to take control of their homes and challenge the status quo that has benefited landlords for far too long.

New Yorkers have a history of fighting for better housing

New York is a renter's city – 69% of its residents do not own their homes, and half of those residents live in rent-stabilized or rent-controlled apartments. Of everyone I know in the city, I can only name one person who owns their apartment. That makes up a large chunk of voters.

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, most tenants pay anywhere from $500 to $1,999 in rent.

In places like New York City, the rent is much, much higher – Zillow data from 2026 shows that the average monthly rent cost in the city is $3,700. For stabilized units, the city says, the average monthly rent is closer to $1,600.

Just over 46 million households in the country are paying rent on properties, accounting for most household growth in 2025.

Historically, renters have been the working class, young people and people of color – groups that are also often excluded from the political conversation in favor of people who hold the purse strings.

The tenant movement in New York City began early in the 20th century to deal with issues in their buildings, like evictions and lack of heating. Since its beginning, the renter movement has ebbed and flowed, hitting lows immediately following World War II and becoming revitalized during the social justice era of the 1960s.

The revitalized tenant movement saw a boost in the 2018 election when a wave of progressives came into power in New York, leading to the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act and expanding the Emergency Tenant Protection Act. They remained organized and helped make history in 2025, electing Mamdani, a democratic socialist and fellow tenant who made freezing the rent one of his core campaign promises.

"We pushed Zohran over the finish line," Grell told me. "Tenants did that, because he was speaking our language."

What does the rent freeze vote mean for New York City?

Of course, the June 25 vote was a huge win for Mamdani in fulfilling his campaign promises. In just six months, the mayor has handed his voters two major wins through a universal childcare pilot program and now the rent freeze. While Mamdani wasn't the one voting to decide on raising the rents, he appointed six people to the board back in February. The vote passed 7-1.

"This is the relief that working people across our city deserve," Mamdani said in a statement.

While tenants and their supporters are celebrating, the real estate industry is a bit more concerned. Economists are similarly concerned, saying that too much government influence is bad for the market.

Yet these economists don't seem to consider the fact that landlords are not more important, nor supposed to have more political power, than the people who live in their buildings. For years, the real estate lobby in New York City has allowed rents to rise and made the city unaffordable for the people who make this place what it is.

As a renter myself – and one who will likely be a renter for most of my life, so long as I live in New York City – I'm in awe of those who have organized to deliver such decisive change to the place where I live, change that may not benefit me directly but will benefit my neighbors in Brooklyn.

Does this mean anything for the country?

New York City is a bit of a special case. Even in the rest of the state, renters don't have as much protection as they do here. But this isn't stopping tenants from organizing across the country – something politicians and real estate moguls alike should take note of.

Renters are organizing to keep monthly payments down and demand better from their landlords. A tenant union in Kentucky just collectively bargained a lease agreement, which the group says is the first of its kind in the South. I can see the benefits of tenant organizing in places like my home state of North Carolina, where algorithms – not people – are deciding what rent prices should be.

For me, working-class solidarity will never be a bad thing. I believe that the country's renters deserve quality and affordable housing, and I'm in full support of them banding together to achieve that.

After the Rent Guidelines Board vote – which lasted a grand total of 15 minutes – I caught up with Grell. She said the adrenaline was keeping her from crying: "When I hit my bed tonight in my rent-frozen apartment, I think I'm going to feel really, really good."

Moments later, she started leading the crowd in a version of "We are the Champions" by Queen, only the words were changed: "We won the rent freeze."

For Grell, for the Tenant Bloc and for renters across the city, the movement is committed to maintaining its momentum. Hopefully, it shows the rest of the country what is possible when renters combine their power.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on Bluesky:@sarapequeno.bsky.social

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New Yorkers keep winning. This time with a rent freeze. | Opinion

Reporting by Sara Pequeño, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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This story was originally published June 28, 2026 at 1:01 AM.