Sunset Park Tenants, Pols Rally for Rent Freeze After Price Hikes

By Gabriele Holtermann, Brooklyn Paper

In the midst of New York City’s worst housing crisis in half a century, a coalition of tenant organizations, local residents, and elected officials gathered in Sunset Park on April 6, demanding a rent freeze for the next four years.

City Council Member Alexa Avilés, Assembly Member and Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani, and Assembly Member Marcela Mitaynes joined the rally, which was organized by CAAAV Voice and co-sponsored by New York State Tenant Bloc.

They denounced the rent hikes that occurred under Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and who, they say, approved “egregious” rent hikes of 9 percent on millions of rent-stabilized tenants. Those hikes, they said, disproportionately affected Sunset Park residents.

Avilés, who is running for re-election to City Council in District 38, which includes Sunset Park, told Brooklyn Paper that rising rents have severely impacted her constituents, including seniors and families forced to share living spaces.

‘The rents just keep going up’

“High rents, consistently, is one of the main issues we have faced,” she said. “Seniors who can’t afford to stay in the neighborhood, people who are tripling up in rooms because they just cannot afford it. The rents just keep going up.”

In addition to rising rents — Avilés has seen rent increases of 100 percent — tenants deal with landlord intimidation, where landlords either don’t make necessary repairs, refuse to accept rent vouchers, or send out official-looking eviction notices.

“[Landlords] send letters that look official but that aren’t actually from lawyers. People sometimes will move out out of fear because they don’t know the formal language. So they’ll come with a letter and say, ‘My landlord says I have to leave,’” said Avilés, who stood with tenant organizers when they disrupted the a rent hike vote by the Rent Guidelines Board in 2023.

The city’s vacancy rate hit a record-low 1.4 percent in 2023, according to a survey by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and have remained low since them — while rents are at an all-time high, pushing low to middle-income renters out of their homes. According to a report published by the New York City Comptroller’s Office in 2024, 69 percent of New York City dwellers are renters. Most of them are rent-burdened, with nearly 30 percent of low-income renters severely rent burdened — meaning they spend more than 50 percent of their pre-tax income on rent.

Sunset Park is home to mostly working-class and low-income residents and has large Chinese and Hispanic populations. According to the NYU Furman Center, median gross rent in Sunset Park was $1,940 in 2022 — though Rental Market Trends noted monthly rents as high as $3,000 in 2025. Per the Furman Center, in 2022, 25.9 percent of renter households in Sunset Park were severely rent-burdened, spending more than 50 percent of household income on rent.

Just 61.4 percent of rental units in the area were affordable at 80 percent of the Area Median Income, which is considered low-income in New York City. Almost half of residents in Brooklyn Community District 7, which includes Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace were earning 80 percent of AMI or less in 2021, according to city data, and roughly one-quarter were earning less than 30 percent AMI.

Mamdani, who has made “Freeze the Rent” part of his election campaign, pointed out that, according to a March 2025 report by the Rent Guidelines Board, landlords made a profit of roughly 12 percent across the city after operating costs in 2022 and 2023.

“Let’s be very clear: Landlords are doing just fine,” Mamdani told the crowd of about 150 tenants. “We’re saying that we see these profits happening at the same time as the struggles of tenants.”

Rent hikes approved by the Adams administration — which tenant advocates fear would likely continue should former governor and Democratic mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo win the race — have pushed renters to the brink and forced them out of their homes, Mamdani said.

“We will choose to keep the working class in New York City, and we will choose to keep the dignity of people who have built this city, who keep this city running over the profits of those who are already doing just fine,” he said.

Pointing to a sign that read, “Let’s Freeze the Rent and Melt the I.C.E.,” Mamdani also called out the deportation of immigrants.

“[ICE] are robbing New Yorkers of the confidence that they can leave their home and not be disappeared, not be dragged, not be detained,” Mamdani said. “We must remember that a rent increase robs those same New Yorkers of that same stability because whether you raise the rent or you detain a New Yorker, you deprive them of their ability to stay a New Yorker.”

A City Hall spokesperson defended the Rent Guidelines Board increases, saying the body had “come to thoughtful, data-informed rent increases for rent stabilized homes.”

“It’s easy to shout simple slogans when you don’t have to face complex realities, but allowing rent stabilized buildings to fall deeper into disrepair would only hurt rent stabilized tenants and subject them to worse living conditions,” the rep said. “The answer to our city’s housing crisis is to build and preserve more affordable housing, not standing in the way of providing quality housing.”

Esther Jensen, a spokesperson for the Cuomo campaign, pointed to Governor Cuomo’s record as HUD secretary and his plan to address the housing crisis, which includes building more housing across all income levels, protecting renters, and keeping families in their homes, among others.

“The city is in crisis, a crisis of affordability and of quality of life, and Governor Cuomo is the only candidate with the proven experience to lead the city forward. From serving as HUD secretary under the Clinton Administration to fighting homelessness and building affordable housing units throughout New York City and the country, New Yorkers know he is the only qualified candidate with an actual record of delivering results. The field of far-left democratic socialists are attacking his record because they don’t have one of their own,” the statement reads.

Pols push back on the real estate lobby
Mitaynes, whose district includes Sunset Park, grew up on 47th Street and 7th Avenue in a 35-unit rent-stabilized building. In 2006, the building was sold, and Mitaynes was evicted.

The first immigrant indigenous Peruvian in the New York State Legislature said that during that time, she learned about the power the real estate lobby holds.

“At a time when tenants were under attack, our elected officials continued to ignore the issue and the problem, and it’s because they believe that you cannot run on tenant issues,” Mitaynes said.

Understanding the trauma evicted tenants experience, she explained it is essential to know which politicians are beholden to the real estate lobby.

“It’s important to understand [the real estate lobby’s] strong influence in politics, and why it’s important for all of us to get involved, to understand who’s running for what position, and, most importantly, where their money is coming from,” said Mitaynes, who defeated 26-year incumbent Assembly Member Félix Ortiz in 2020, on small donations from her community.

Editor’s note: A version of this story originally ran in Brooklyn Paper. Click here to see the original story.

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