Record-high homelessness, vacancy decontrol, and scarce affordable housing units are only the most visible signs. According to the Citizen’s Budget Commission, one in five households in our city pays more than half its income in rent, with 94 percent of them low-income families. Over one million families struggle to grapple with stagnant wages and the rising cost of living.

Every June the affordability of over one million rent-regulated apartments is determined by nine individuals appointed to the New York City Rent Guidelines Board (RGB). The mandate of the RGB is to establish rent levels for one- and two-year leases that apply to all units subject to the city’s Rent Stabilization Law.

For years the RGB approved higher rent adjustments, despite evidence that increases in landlord income and decreases in operating costs didn’t warrant them. The data produced annually by the RGB staff pointed to 10 straight years in which landlord income outpaced expenses. It wasn’t until 2015, with a new board made up of members selected by Mayor de Blasio, that tenants saw a rent freeze and relief for working families.

This year the data is even more firmly on the side of tenants. The RGB staff has released its 2016 Price Index of Operating Costs (PIOC) report. Landlords spent 41.2 percent less on fuel, thanks to low fuel oil prices and a mild winter. (Natural gas and steam fell 31.6 and 31.2 percent respectively.) Tenant advocates argue that this drop should offset increases–all substantially below 10 percent–in taxes, labor costs, insurance, and other expenses carried by landlords.

Still, the Rent Stabilization Association–the landlord lobby–is already using media ad campaigns and other pressures to push for rent increases as high as 7 percent, despite the willingness to extend the freeze evident in the RGB’s preliminary vote.

Consider what’s at stake for New Yorkers if the landlord lobby succeeds.

What can you do? Come out and testify! Demand an outcome that won’t imperil millions of your fellow New Yorkers. The RGB is holding hearings in all five boroughs, and you can join tenant advocates and elected officials for an informational housing rights forum on the Upper East Side on Thursday, May 19th at 6pm. Click here to RSVP.