Zohran Mamdani’s new housing tsar called for the white middle class to be “impoverished” in a series of resurfaced posts on social media.
Cea Weaver, who was appointed by the New York mayor as director of the office to protect tenants, previously said home ownership was a “weapon of white supremacy” in the posts on X.
Ms Weaver urged people to “seize private property” and said she endorsed a “no more white men in office platform”.
The posts, which were published before Ms Weaver took office, have caused a headache for Mr Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist who has run on a staunchly Left-wing platform.
His main focus since being inaugurated on Jan 1 has been housing, and he announced Ms Weaver’s appointment on his second day in office, with a post on X saying she would “hold landlords accountable”.
The Mayor praised Ms Weaver, who is a member of Democratic Socialists of America, for helping tighten rent stabilisation laws in 2019 to give tenants more protection.
But the old posts have put a spotlight on Ms Weaver’s hardline views.
In August 2019, she wrote on X: “Private property including any kind of ESPECIALLY home ownership is a weapon of white supremacy”.
Another post from November 2018 said that “home ownership is racist / failed public policy” and called for politicians to “impoverish the *white* middle class”.
The posts were published before Ms Weaver took office
In July that year Ms Weaver wrote: “There is no such thing as a “good” gentrifier”.
Ms Weaver has also said on X that she backed a “no more white men in office platform”.
In a post from 2020 after the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Ms Weaver wrote: “The Police Are Just People The State Sanctions To Murder W(ith) Immunity”.
In addition to her new role, Ms Weaver, who has a master’s degree in urban planning, currently serves as executive director of Housing Justice for All, a housing advocacy group.
She also faced scrutiny for a podcast interview in 2022 in which she espoused similarly radical views.
Ms Weaver said: “For centuries we’ve treated property as an individual good and not a collective good.
“Transitioning to treating it as a collective good and as a model of shared equity will mean that families, especially white families… are going to have a different relationship to property than the one that we currently have”.
Among the executive orders signed by Mr Mamdani since he took office is one creating “Rental Ripoff” hearings across New York, where tenants will get to complain about their landlords, who have decried the idea.
The Telegraph has contacted Mr Mamdani and Ms Weaver for comment.
