CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities

CAAAV works to build grassroots community power across diverse poor and working-class Asian immigrant and refugee communities in NYC.

[CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities @caaav]

TONIGHT TENANTS MAKE HISTORY. The Rent Guidelines Board just voted for the first-ever rent freeze for one and two year lease. This win belongs to working class and immigrant tenants, who tirelessly organized to make a rent freeze the top demand for New Yorkers.

[Office of New York City Comptroller Mark Levine @NYCComptroller]

Wealth inequality is growing nationwide, but nowhere is it more apparent than in New York City. New data from our office and a report by @elizashapiro @nytimes shows how inequality has worsened since the pandemic:
📊 Nearly 2/3 of real income growth in NYC went to the top 1%
💵 In 2024, the top 1% of NYC households received 37% of all income in the city, compared with 22% nationally.
📈 The top 0.1% (about 5,000 households) received 22% of all NYC income, approximately double what is seen nationally.
📉 For the bottom 90% of earners in NYC, between 2019 and 2024, real median income fell 3.2%, while average real income for the bottom 90% was essentially unchanged.

[CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities @caaav]

We carry the struggle of generations of tenants who are wresting the world back from real estate greed, who have fought for a life of dignity. May this win build our power and make us stronger for more—we must take back NYC for the working class.

[CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities @caaav]

TONIGHT TENANTS MAKE HISTORY. The Rent Guidelines Board just voted for the first-ever rent freeze for one and two year lease. This win belongs to working class and immigrant tenants, who tirelessly organized to make a rent freeze the top demand for New Yorkers.

[CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities @caaav]

Today we celebrate. Tomorrow we will keep up the fight. Real estate lobbies like NYAA, REBNY, and SPONY are already seizing every opportunity to retaliate with illegal rent hikes, lawsuits, and threats to rent-stabilization.

[Moses Jeanfrancois @mosesjeans]

The major organizations at the last Rent Board hearing:

- @caaav
- @nycpsl / @pslnational
- @Met_Council
- @UAW
- @nycDSA
- @tenantneighbor

[CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities @caaav]

Mr. Chen, Chinatown tenant since 2005: “Landlords ask for higher rents, but provide no repairs. It’s not that they don’t have money. They don’t care about low-income tenants. I cannot afford the rent already, which is 200%+ of my monthly retirement income. Freeze the rent.” (7/7)

[CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities @caaav]

NOW: Nearly 30 CAAAV tenant leaders are testifying at the Manhattan Hearing, calling on the RGB to FREEZE THE RENT for 2.4M+ tenants. Landlord incomes are already up 30%—tenants are fighting for NO INCREASES ON ALL LEASES. Here are some quotes from our leaders: (1/7)

[CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities @caaav]

Mrs. Lin, Chinatown tenant who pays 60% of income to rent: “Because of rent, I have not been able to return to China to visit my mother. It has been seven years. The separation from my family and the pressure of rent have taken a serious toll on my health. Freeze the rent.” (6/7)

[CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities @caaav]

Working class and immigrant tenants are facing a triple crisis of ICE escalation, wartime inflation, and benefit cuts. Rent hikes will only reward landlord greed and threaten our right to shelter in place.

NO INCREASES ON ALL LEASES. Rent freeze NOW.

[CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities @caaav]

At the Queens hearing, tenants are calling on the RGB to freeze the rent: No increases in all leases. DON'T FEED VULTURE LANDLORDS!

NYC tenants generated $8 BILLION in net income for rent-stabilized landlords last year. The crisis is not landlord distress--it's landlord greed.

[Parent Child Relationship Association @pcra_nyc]

Thanks to artist Gigi Lin, @caaav, and @aaartsalliance for a powerful workshop exploring oral histories, campaign materials and past struggles to personal experiences. Our youth had the chance to explore storytelling, resistance, and the importance of preserving community memory.

[DRUM #CeasefireNow @DesisRisingUp]

BREAKING—A Mayor committed to working class New Yorkers, partnered with robust movements, filled a $12 billion budget gap left behind by the previous administration.

[CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities @caaav]

Through @GovKathyHochul & @JulieMenin, finance capital has wielded the budget deficit to constrict our horizon for a w/c NYC—Albany must #TaxtheRich . We thank @NYCMayor for refusing to balance budgets on the backs of the w/c & standing with Movement to fight austerity cuts.

[CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities @caaav]

Organized NYers backed @NYCMayor Mamdani to do the impossible: Close $12B gap left by Adams’s fiscal mismanagement & make historic investments in NYC’s tenant majority. We look fwd to the city’s housing plan, at a time when real estate has made windfalls from tenant suffering.