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A housing official appointed by Mayor Zahran Mamdani to lead New York City’s newly revived Mayor’s Office of Tenant Protection said that “middle-class white homeowners are a huge problem for the tenant justice movement” and argued that organizers should “undermine the institution of homeownership,” during a podcast appearance in 2021.
Sia Weaver, who was appointed director of the Mayor’s Office of Tenant Protection on Jan. 1 through an executive order signed by Mamdani, made the remarks during a September 2021 episode of “Bad Faith Podcast“While discussing eviction policy and tenant organizing strategies.
The comments attracted renewed attention as Weaver now has formal executive authority over tenant policy and its implementation in New York City.
Her appointment was announced on Mamdani’s first day in office as part of a slate of executive actions to revive the Mayor’s Office of Tenant Protection. According to city hall.
NYC DEM REVEALS HOW THE CITY COUNCIL REJECTED CEA WEAVER – AND NOW MAMDANI IS TURNING OVER HER AUTHORITY WITHOUT CONFIRMATION
Sia Weaver, left, speaks during a press conference with New York Mayor Zahran Mamdani, on January 1, in New York. (Michael Appleton/Mayor’s Office Photography via AP)
During the podcast, Weaver argued that resistance to progressive reform often comes not from big business owners but from homeowners.
“I think the reality is that a lot of the people who are opposed to the eviction moratorium and more rental assistance are not corporate landlords,” Weaver said. “They are homeowners who feel as though the eviction moratorium is an attack on their rights as a landlord.”
She added that this opposition presents a challenge to housing organizers, saying that “middle-class white homeowners are a big problem for the rental justice movement.”
Mamdani says it’s “obvious” he doesn’t agree with his aides’ longstanding views that link homeownership to white supremacy
New York Mayor Zahran Mamdani speaks during a press conference with Sia Weaver, January 1, in New York. (Michael Appleton/Mayor’s Office Photography via AP)
Later in the conversation, Weaver said homeownership has become the main source of stability in the United States because of gaps in social programs, but he said the structure itself is an obstacle to housing activity.
“Unless we can undermine the institution of homeownership and seek to provide stability in other ways, we find ourselves in a really difficult regulatory situation,” she said.
Weaver framed evictions as a matter of power rather than economics, saying landlords are resistant to the idea that tenants can remain in properties they “consider themselves to own.”
Sia Weaver walks in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Weaver was appointed by New York City Mayor Zahran Mamdani to be his new director of the city’s Office of Tenant Protection. (Gregory B. Mango)
In the same podcast, Weaver endorsed policies including universal rent control, the right to form tenant associations, preventing evictions, and funding rental assistance through higher taxes on the wealthy. She also said broader government programs could “reduce homeownership” by providing stability through other means.
Weaver has also come under scrutiny for his past social media posts criticizing white homeownership. In an August 2019 post on
In a tweet since deleting X’s account, Mamdani’s director of tenants, Sia Weaver, called homeownership a “weapon of white supremacy.” (Fox News)
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On her first day in office, Weaver joined Mamdani in announcing the city’s intervention in the bankruptcy proceedings of Pinnacle Group, a landlord linked to housing violations and complaints, according to the City Council.
Fox News Digital contacted the mayor’s press office to ask questions about whether Mamdani stood by Weaver’s 2021 statements but did not receive a response by publication.
Fox News Digital’s Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.