It was a somber scene outside New York’s City Hall on Wednesday afternoon. Four coffins sat at the foot of the steps; one by one, taxi drivers covered them with white flowers, before assembling on the steps and shouting for the city to “stop Uber’s greed” and “stop making us slaves.” It was the second such gathering in two months, as drivers and their advocates mourned another suicide that they attribute to the rise of ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft. That sudden increase in the number of for-hire vehicles on the city’s streets, they claim, has made it impossible for drivers to earn a decent living.

On March 16, Nicanor Ochisor, a 65-year-old yellow cab driver, took his own life in his Queens home. According to his family and friends, he had been drowning financially as his prized taxi medallion, on which he had hoped to retire, plummeted in value. The circumstances surrounding Ochisor’s death were upsettingly familiar: In February, driver Douglas Schifter shot himself outside City Hall after posting a lengthy statement to Facebook blaming politicians for letting the streets get so saturated. According to the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, a nonprofit group that advocates for drivers, at least two other drivers have killed themselves since December in response to mounting financial pressures.

At Wednesday’s rally, Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of NYTWA, described the situation as “a living nightmare.” The assembled drivers echoed her sentiment. Noureddine Afsi said he began driving a yellow cab in 2001 when a friend said it would be easier money than his job in retail. “You could work nine hours and easily make $200 in a day,” he recalled. “Now, you’re lucky if you make $50 or $60.” Beresford Simmons, who has been driving a yellow cab for more than 50 years, expressed a similar frustration: At 71 years old, he said, he had just had heart surgery and was on dialysis—and he was in no financial position to take a break from driving. “We have guys at home who are losing their houses,” he said. “I know cab drivers who are homeless today.”

The anguish and anger on display at City Hall offer an unsettling look at the cost of disrupting long-standing industries. Until recently, driving a cab in New York was a gateway to the middle class, especially if drivers could get their hands on a coveted medallion (essentially a permit to operate their own cabs, rather than leasing cars from others). With the number of medallions fixed, prices generally rose, peaking in 2014 at over $1 million—well outside the budget of many drivers, but good news for medallion owners who sometimes borrowed against them. Since then, though, prices have fallen sharply, as competition from ride-hailing services intensified. In January, seven medallions sold for under $200,000 each. Many drivers are deeply in debt—and a long way from the stable lifestyle they once expected.