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........

© USA TODAY