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The housing official appointed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani to lead New York City’s newly revamped Mayor’s Office for Tenant Protection previously said, “White, middle-class landlords are the biggest problem for the tenant justice movement” and advocates argued they “must undermine the institution of home ownership,” during a 2021 podcast appearance.
Cea Weaver, appointed director of the Mayor’s Office of Tenant Protection on Jan. 1 according to the executive order signed by Mamdani, said this in a September 2021 episode of the “Bad Faith podcast” while discussing layoff policy and employer organizing strategies.
The comments have drawn new attention as Weaver is now the official authority on employer policy and law enforcement in New York City.
His appointment was announced on Mamdani’s first day in office as part of a plan to revamp the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, according to City Hall.
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Cea Weaver, left, speaks during a news conference with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Jan. 1, New York. (Michael Appleton/Mayor’s Office Photos via AP)
During the podcast, Weaver argued that resistance to the ongoing reforms often comes not from large landlords but rather from landlords.
“I think the reality is that most of the people who are putting off eviction notices and additional rental assistance are not homeowners,” Weaver said. “They are landlords who feel that the termination of their eviction is an attack on their rights as a landlord.”
He added that this opposition presents a challenge to housing planners, saying “White, middle-class landlords are the biggest problem for the tenant justice movement.”
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New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a news conference with Cea Weaver, Jan. 1, New York. (Michael Appleton/Mayor’s Office Photos via AP)
Later in the interview, Weaver said that home ownership has become the main source of stability in the US because of gaps in social systems, but argued that the structure itself poses a barrier to housing activism.
“Unless we can undermine the institution of home ownership and seek to provide stability in other ways, it is a really difficult planning situation that we find ourselves in,” he said.
Weaver framed the evictions as a matter of power rather than economics, saying that landlords object to the idea that tenants can live in places they “think of as their own.”
Cea Weaver walks in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY Weaver has been hired by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to be his new director of the city’s Office of Tenant Protection. (Gregory P. Mango)
In the same podcast, Weaver endorsed policies including universal rent control, the right to form tenant unions, preventing evictions, and subsidizing rent through higher taxes for the wealthy. He also pointed out that comprehensive government programs could “lead to home ownership” by providing stability in other ways.
Weaver also drew scrutiny for past social media posts criticizing white home ownership. In an August 2019 letter to X that was later removed but re-published by Fox News Digital, Weaver wrote that “private property including and kind OR Home ownership is a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as ‘wealth building’ public policy.”
In a tweet since deleting the X account, Mamdani hiring manager Cea Weaver called home ownership a “weapon of white supremacy.” (Fox Stories)
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On his first day in office, Weaver joined Mamdani in announcing the city’s intervention in the bankruptcy of Pinnacle Group, a landlord that has been accused of housing violations and complaints, according to City Hall.
Fox News Digital contacted the mayor’s press office with questions about whether Mamdani stood by Weaver’s 2021 remarks but did not receive a response by publication.
Fox News Digital’s Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.
