Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s newly appointed tenant advocate known as to “seize personal property” and blasted dwelling possession as a “weapon of white supremacy” in a collection of pro-communist social media posts.
Cea Weaver, Mamdani’s new director of town Workplace to Shield Tenants, made the statements and urged her followers to elect extra communists in a number of lecturing posts on her now-deleted X account that had been unearthed by web sleuths.
“Seize personal property!” she stated on June 13, 2018.
She later doubled down on that in a mini-manifesto on August 2019.
“Personal property together with any form of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy,” she stated then.
Weaver additionally pushed to “Elect extra communists” in December 2017 — when a Harlem road nook was being renamed in honor of former Manhattan Rep. Vito Marcantonio, who was a communist.
She additionally unloaded on regulation enforcement in a Might 2020 rant that got here through the furor over the loss of life of George Floyd.
“The Police Are Simply Folks The State Sanctions To Homicide W[ith] Immunity,” she posted.
Weaver, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and former marketing campaign coordinator for Housing Justice For All, additionally served as an adviser to the Mamdani marketing campaign in 2025.
The Put up featured her as a part of a gaggle of younger lefty progressives in Mamdani’s mind belief.
She was a key participant in lobbying the Democratic-run state Legislature to tighten town’s hire stabilization legal guidelines in 2019, making them extra pro-tenant.
One main property proprietor stated Mamdani and Weaver are misguided.
“With out landlords the right way to do you construct and preserve housing? You suppose the federal government goes to do it? Have a look at NYCHA [New York City Housing Authority complexes],” stated Humberto Lopes, founder and CEO of the Gotham Housing Alliance.
“You set a system in place to destroy landlords. Why are you s–tting on us?,” he stated.
Mamdani desires to freeze the hire on 1 million rent-regulated residences — a transfer that would want log out from the Lease Pointers Board.
Mamdani’s workplace and Weaver had no rapid remark.
In the meantime, Mamdani on Sunday appointed a veteran state housing official, Dina Levy, as the brand new commissioner of Housing of Preservation and Improvement, or HPD.
Levy at present serves as senior vp of single household and neighborhood growth at New York’s Division of Houses and Neighborhood Renewal, the state’s housing company.
“Levy is an skilled and fearless housing chief, and I do know that she is going to combat to guard tenants and deal with our housing disaster head-on,” Mamdani stated, showing with Levy at a press convention in The Bronx.
Mamdani additionally signed an government order creating “Rental Ripoff” hearings throughout the 5 boroughs throughout the first 100 days of his time as mayor. The order directs HPD, the Division of Buildings, the Mayor’s Workplace to Shield Tenants, and the Division of Shopper and Employee Safety to carry the hearings in coordination with the brand new Workplace of Mass Engagement.
“Too many New Yorkers have been compelled to pay extra for much less — dwelling in unsafe, unconscionable, and unaffordable housing,” the mayor stated. “Underneath my administration, that ends. At present’s government order is step one in direction of giving New Yorkers a voice in addressing the housing disaster that’s pricing them out of our metropolis.”
Levy stated she began out as a tenant advocate and is prepared for the problem of enhancing and increasing town’s inexpensive housing inventory.
“I do know the work forward will likely be exhausting,” Levy stated.
A part of HPD’s mission is implementing the housing upkeep code on behalf of tenants, which incorporates inspecting properties for security, bringing instances in housing court docket towards landlords and requiring emergency repairs.
