We are joined by New York City tenant organizer and communications expert, Ritti Singh, who recently published an article with Convergence, covering a strategy – which has been implemented in NYC tenant organizing – she calls “surround sound” communications.
Then, in early 2025, a group of tenant organizers in New York City began a campaign to Freeze the Rent. The language and values of this campaign were adopted by then mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Now as acting mayor for five months, Mamdani has yet to fully implement a rent freeze or meet other housing goals laid out by his coalition on the campaign trail.
But the roots of progress are beginning to show. Mamdani has replaced six out of nine seats on the city’s Rent Guidelines Board, which determines city policy on rent control and more. Housing affordability was a major part of Mamdani’s platform and the project of co-governing with his coalitions to deliver on those goals is now under way.
We host a panel of tenant organizers who have been a part of this work throughout the whole process and beyond.
In today’s episode we’ll explore how “freeze the rent” was part of the narrative infrastructure for Mamdani’s win, and how it has become a center of gravity for developing the practice of movement-driven co-governance in New York.
Panelists Include
- Membership Coordinator of the New York State Tenant Block, Lex Rountree
- Communications Manager for CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities + CAAAV Voice, Irene Hsu
- Co-Chair of the Freeze the Rent campaign and Community Action for Safe Apartments Leader, Joanne Grell
Want more?
- Submit your article proposals to Convergence
- Enrich your media diet: Movement Media Alliance
- Contact us: [email protected]
- Subscribe to Convergence Magazine’s YouTube to catch the video premiere of each episode: Mondays at 7:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT
- Have we made a difference in your life? Help us keep it going. convergencemag.com/membership
Episode Guests
Ritti Singh is a narrative strategist and organizer who has spent the last several years building communications programs for the tenant movement in New York. She believes communications is organizing: crafting narratives that are organizing conversations at scale while building the infrastructure to carry them everywhere at once.
She served as Communications Director of Housing Justice for All and the NYS Tenant Bloc, where she led the Freeze the Rent campaign communications in the 2025 New York City mayoral race, drove the Good Cause Eviction narrative to 450+ press placements, and built training programs for tenant spokespeople and leaders across the state. She is currently Deputy Communications Director for Claire Valdez for Congress in NY-7. She has taught narrative strategy at the City College of New York and CUNY, and trains organizers through the Advocacy Institute and Social Movement Technologies.
She believes communications for the left should constantly assert power, relentlessly invite the working class into the fight, and build the belief that we can win.