Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor of New York City as a relentless champion of tenants, promising to freeze rents and attack bad landlords. For his fellow members of the Democratic Socialists of America, advocating for tenants means something more radical: maligning homeownership as capitalistic and inherently inequitable. Cea Weaver, the new director of the Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants, once declared it 'a weapon of white supremacy.' (She apologized, sort of. That's not 'how I would say things today,' she said after getting appointed.) Mamdani has pointedly distanced himself from such statements. He has noted that he once worked as a foreclosure-prevention counselor at a nonprofit, where 'my job each and every day was to keep low-to-middle-income homeowners in Queens in their homes,' he said, adding that homeownership is a 'critical pathway' to financial stability. The question is what policies he will pursue. In a move that seems intended as a bargaining chip with the state...
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