NYC official calls out ‘White, middle-class homeowners’ in 2021 podcast

“White, middle-class landlords are a huge problem for the tenant justice movement,” the housing official appointed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani to lead New York City’s newly revitalized Tenant Protection Agency previously said, arguing in a 2021 podcast that organizers should “undermine the institution of homeownership.”

Cea Weaver, who was appointed director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants on Jan. 1 through an executive order signed by Mamdani.Bad Faith podcast” When discussing eviction policy and tenant regulation strategies.

The comments have attracted renewed attention now that Weaver now has formal executive authority over tenant policy and enforcement in New York City.

His appointment was announced on Mamdani’s first day in office as part of a series of executive action plans revitalizing the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants. by city hall.

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During the podcast, Weaver argued that resistance to progressive reforms mostly comes from homeowners, not big corporate owners.

“I think the reality is that most of the people who are turning down eviction moratoriums and more rental assistance are not corporate landlords,” Weaver said. he said. “They are landlords who feel the eviction moratorium is an attack on their rights as property owners.”

That opposition poses a challenge for housing organizers, he added, adding, “White, middle-class landlords are a huge problem for the tenant justice movement.”

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks at a press conference with Cea Weaver on January 1 in New York City. (Mayoral Photography Office via Michael Appleton/AP)

Later in the speech, Weaver said homeownership had become a key source of stability in the United States because of gaps in social programs, but argued that the structure itself was an impediment to housing activism.

“Unless we undermine the institution of homeownership and try to stabilize it by other means, it’s a really difficult organizational situation that we find ourselves in,” he said.

Weaver framed the evictions as a matter of power rather than economy, and said landlords were resisting the idea that tenants could remain in properties “that they thought were theirs.”

Cea Weaver walks in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, NY Weaver has been appointed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as the new director of the city’s Office of Tenant Protection. (Gregory P. Mango)

In the same podcast, Weaver endorsed policies such as universal rent control, the right to form tenant unions, blocking evictions, and financing rental assistance through higher taxes on the wealthy. He also argued that broader government programs could “dismantle homeownership” by providing stability through other means.

Weaver also took a dig at past social media posts criticizing white home ownership. “Private property, especially homeownership, is a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as a ‘wealth creation’ public policy,” Weaver wrote in an August 2019 post about

Mamdani tenant manager Cea Weaver called homeownership a “weapon of white supremacy” in a tweet after deleting her X account. (Fox News)

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On his first day in office, Weaver joined Mamdani to announce the city’s intervention in the bankruptcy proceedings of Pinnacle Group, a landlord linked to housing violations and complaints, according to City Hall.

Fox News Digital contacted the mayor’s press office with questions about whether Mamdani stands by Weaver’s 2021 statements but did not receive a response via broadcast.

Fox News Digital’s Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.