Housing radicalism continued to take center stage this week after previously unreported audio revealed remarks by Cea Weaver, the top housing official for New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani. According to the audio, Weaver described “white, middle-class homeowners” as a barrier to her political goals and openly called for weakening private property and homeownership.
During a September 2021 episode of the Bad Faith podcast, Weaver stated, “White, middle-class homeowners are a huge problem for a renter justice movement.” She added, “Unless we can undermine the institution of homeownership and seek to provide stability in other ways, I don’t know—it’s a really difficult organizing situation we find ourselves in.” The episode was hosted by Briahna Joy Gray and featured activist Arianna Afeni Evans.
Weaver outlined a national strategy aimed at curbing landlord rights and expanding government control. “We need a national movement to pass universal rent control to limit landlords’ ability to endlessly profit on our homes,” she said, calling for policies to “really block evictions.” She continued, “But rent control is not enough: People need money,” arguing for higher taxes and cash assistance while insisting, “We need to chip away at homeownership.”
She also questioned the legitimacy of property ownership itself. “Landlords really don’t like the idea that a tenant could live, that a tenant could be able and allowed to stay in something that they consider themselves to own,” Weaver said while discussing long-term rent nonpayment.
The remarks add to scrutiny over Weaver’s history of inflammatory statements, including a separate podcast appearance where she said her “goal is to have the housing actually be worth less.” Mayor Mamdani previously said he receives “most of [his] knowledge on housing from Cea.”
In a 2021 video, Weaver framed property as a collective resource. “I think the reality is, is that for centuries, we’ve really treated property as an individualized good and not a collective good,” she said, adding that families “are going to have a different relationship to properties than the one that we currently have.”
Despite the fallout, Mamdani defended Weaver’s role, saying she was chosen “to build on the work that she has done to protect tenants across the city.”
