What Mamdani Doesn't Know About Tenants

"On New Year's Day, Zohran Mamdani completed his inauguration festivities and departed for Brooklyn. In the working-class neighborhood of East Flatbush, the new mayor stepped into the lobby of an old apartment building on Clarkson Avenue and met with tenants on rent strike. Their grievances were many: The building has 201 outstanding housing-code violations, including leaks, roach infestations, black mold, and that most perilous of winter derelictions, a lack of consistent heat and hot water."

"Mamdani faced reporters and photographers in the lobby. "Landlords have been allowed to mistreat their tenants with impunity," he declared. "That ends today." Cea Weaver, the new director of the Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants and, like Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, stood at his side. Her disdain for private-market landlords is no less fierce than Mamdani's; she has argued that no tenant should be evicted for not paying rent."

"Michael Powell: The question-mark mayoralty As it happens, in the early 1980s, I worked as a tenant organizer in the same neighborhood, including at a building a few doors down from the one where Mamdani spoke. I empathize with the mayor's fury and recall my own outrage as I spoke with hardworking tenants who ran their ovens with the doors open to stay warm and watched mice scamper across their floors."

Zohran Mamdani visited East Flatbush to meet tenants on rent strike in a building with 201 outstanding housing-code violations, including leaks, roach infestations, black mold, and inconsistent heat and hot water. Mamdani campaigned as a democratic socialist promising a four-year rent freeze for rent-stabilized apartments and measures to seize buildings from slumlords. He declared an end to landlord impunity and announced "rental ripoff hearings" for tenants to confront negligent landlords. Cea Weaver, director of the Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants, endorsed strong tenant protections and has argued that no tenant should be evicted for unpaid rent.

Read at The Atlantic