While running for office, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani took the position that the city should be buying up housing to make it more affordable for residents.
After taking office, Mamdani appointed a rent czar, and he signed multiple executive orders intended to address housing in the Big Apple.
Cea Weaver, who now heads the Office to Protect Tenants, was approached by reporters and asked a very simple question about her radical views, yet she broke down in tears and ran away.
A major platform issue for Mamdani during the campaign was the notion that he could start to buy housing as it became available, ultimately creating a large commune in the city.
His website states, We need significantly more affordable housing. But for decades, the City has relied almost entirely on changes to the zoning code to invite and shape private development, with results that can fall short of the promises. And the housing that does get built is often out of reach for working families who need it the most.”
Mamdani claimed that he would have a “$100 billion dollar commitment over 10 years” to provide more affordable housing for NYC residents.
Where or how he planned to get this money remains a question.
Before joining Mamdani’s team, Weaver was the executive director of Housing Justice for All and the New York State Tenant Bloc.
In introducing Weaver as part of his administration and and announcing an order to revive the Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants, Mamdani stated, "Today, on the first day of this new administration, on the day where so many rent payments are due, we will not wait to deliver action. We will stand up on behalf of the tenants of this city,"
Mamdani also signed orders to create the LIFT (Land Inventory Fast Track) task force and the SPEED (Streamlining Procedures to Expedite Equitable Development) task force.
Oddly enough, it turns out that Weaver’s background is everything this administration is supposedly standing up against, in a glaring double standard.
Weaver has penned social media posts likening home ownership to racism, but it would appear that she forgot about her mother’s home in Tennessee, which is reportedly worth $1.6 million.
For instance, in 2019, she posted, “Private property including and kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as ‘wealth building’ public policy.”
When she was asked about her mother, Celia Applegate, and the pricey residence she owns, Weaver started crying, only replying “no,” then running away from reporters and going back inside her home.
Weaver is now trying to backtrack on her prior comments, saying, “Some of those things are certainly not how I would say things today.” This is just more of the same “okay for me but not for thee” philosophy that runs rampant in the Democrat Party, and in politics in general these days. It just drips with hypocrisy.
