“SEIZE PRIVATE PROPERTY!”: Mamdani Appoints Communist Radical to Run Housing, Blasted Homeownership As ‘White Supremacy’

If the goal was to euthanize New York real estate, Zohran Mamdani couldn’t have executed it more efficiently. His newly appointed tenant advocate, Cea Weaver, has a documented record of calling to “seize private property,” denouncing homeownership as a “weapon of white supremacy,” and urging voters to “elect more communists.” These are not fringe comments—they are the ideology now embedded inside City Hall. Weaver, a Democratic Socialists of America activist and longtime Mamdani adviser, has openly attacked landlords, law enforcement, and the concept of private property itself, while helping push some of the most punitive rent laws in the city’s history. Pair that with Mamdani’s plan to freeze rents on one million apartments, expand enforcement hearings, and empower activist bureaucracies, and the message to investors, homeowners, and developers is unmistakable: get out. With City Hall openly hostile to ownership and capital, the only rational question left is not what to buy in NYC—but who, in their right mind, would buy here now?

Appointing a “seize private property” communist and freezing rents on a million units is not reform—it’s destruction.

Ayn Rand: Man has to work and produce in order to support his life. He has to support his life by his own effort and by the guidance of his own mind. If he cannot dispose of the product of his effort, he cannot dispose of his effort; if he cannot dispose of his effort, he cannot dispose of his life. Without property rights, no other rights can be practiced.

The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.

Metro
Zohran Mamdani’s new NYC tenant advocate called to ‘seize private property,’ blasted homeownership as ‘white supremacy’
By Carl Campanile, NY POst, Jan. 4, 2026, 6:45 p.m. ET

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s newly appointed tenant advocate called to “seize private property” and blasted homeownership as a “weapon of white supremacy” in a series of pro-Communist social media posts.

Cea Weaver, Mamdani’s new director of the city Office to Protect Tenants, made the statements and urged her followers to elect more Communists in several lecturing posts on her now-deleted X account that were unearthed by internet sleuths.

“Seize private property!” she said on June 13, 2018.

Weaver also pushed to “Elect more communists” in December 2017 — when a Harlem street corner was being renamed in honor of former Manhattan Rep. Vito Marcantonio, who was a Communist.

Weaver called homeownership a “weapon of white supremacy” in a 2019 X post.

Weaver, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and former campaign coordinator for Housing Justice For All, also served as an adviser to the Mamdani campaign in 2025.

The Post featured her as part of a group of young lefty progressives in Mamdani’s brain trust.

She was a key player in lobbying the Democrat-run state Legislature to tighten the city’s rent stabilization laws in 2019, making them more pro-tenant.

One major property owner said Mamdani and Weaver are misguided.

Cea Weaver wiping away tears at a press conference.
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Weaver posted in 2020 that police officers are allowed to “murder with immunity.”
Robert Mecea
“Without landlords how to do you build and maintain housing? You think the government is going to do it? Look at NYCHA [New York City Housing Authority complexes],” said Humberto Lopes, founder and CEO of the Gotham Housing Alliance.

“You put a system in place to destroy landlords. Why are you s–tting on us?,” he said.

Mamdani wants to freeze the rent on 1 million rent-regulated apartments — a move that would need signoff from the Rent Guidelines Board.

Mamdani embracing Weaver at a press conference at a Brooklyn apartment building on Jan. 1, 2026.
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Mamdani embracing Weaver at a press conference at a Brooklyn apartment building on Jan. 1, 2026.
Robert Mecea
Mamdani’s office and Weaver had no immediate comment.

Meanwhile, Mamdani on Sunday appointed a veteran state housing official, Dina Levy, as the new commissioner of Housing Preservation and Development, or HPD.

Levy currently serves as senior vice president of single-family and community development at New York’s Division of Homes and Community Renewal, the state’s housing agency.

“Levy is an experienced and fearless housing leader, and I know that she will fight to protect tenants and tackle our housing crisis head-on,” Mamdani said, appearing with Levy at a press conference in the Bronx.

“Too many New Yorkers have been forced to pay more for less — living in unsafe, unconscionable, and unaffordable housing,” the mayor said. “Under my administration, that ends. Today’s executive order is the first step towards giving New Yorkers a voice in addressing the housing crisis that is pricing them out of our city.”

Levy said she started out as a tenant advocate and is ready for the challenge of improving and expanding the city’s affordable housing stock.

“I do know the work ahead will be hard,” Levy said.

Part of HPD’s mission is enforcing the housing maintenance code on behalf of tenants, which includes inspecting homes for safety, bringing cases in housing court against landlords and requiring emergency repairs.