Welcome to A New Era, Cea Weaver!

Cea is joining as Director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants. She’s been leading Housing Justice for All and the New York State Tenant Bloc, where she helped pass the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, landmark… pic.twitter.com/Ryc128Hed3

— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) January 2, 2026

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s newly appointed director of the city Office to Protect Tenants, Cea Weaver, has a digital paper trail that’s raising alarms among property owners and moderates alike. Long before landing her City Hall post, Weaver publicly called to “seize private property” and labeled homeownership itself “a weapon of white supremacy” — statements pulled from her now-deleted social media account and unearthed by online sleuths.

NYC Mayor Mamdani’s Tenant Director, Cea Weaver: “I think the reality is, is that for centuries we’ve really treated property as an individualized good and not a collective good …it will mean that families — especially white families … are gonna have a different relationship… pic.twitter.com/9Swc0UeNiE

— thedailybs w/ Snerdley (@thedailybs_Bo) January 5, 2026

“Seize private property!” Weaver declared in a June 13, 2018 post.

She didn’t walk it back. Instead, she escalated.

In August 2019, Weaver issued what critics describe as a mini-manifesto: “Private property including any kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy,” she wrote.

That same ideological thread runs through other posts. In December 2017, Weaver urged followers to “Elect more communists” — a message she posted as a Harlem street corner was renamed in honor of former Manhattan Rep. Vito Marcantonio, a Communist.

Her rhetoric didn’t stop at landlords or homeowners. During the unrest following George Floyd’s death in May 2020, Weaver went after law enforcement in blunt terms, posting: “The Police Are Just People The State Sanctions To Murder W[ith] Immunity.”

Weaver is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, a former campaign coordinator for Housing Justice For All, and served as an adviser to Mamdani’s 2025 campaign. The New York Post previously highlighted her as part of the mayor’s inner circle of young progressive activists shaping his policy agenda.

She was also a key figure in lobbying Albany’s Democrat-controlled Legislature to tighten New York City’s rent stabilization laws in 2019 — changes that tilted the system further toward tenants and away from landlords.

Property owners say the results speak for themselves.

“Without landlords how to do you build and maintain housing? You think the government is going to do it? Look at NYCHA,” 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 added.

Those concerns come as Mayor Mamdani pushes to freeze rents on roughly 1 million rent-regulated apartments, a move that would still require approval from the Rent Guidelines Board — but one that critics warn could choke off investment and maintenance citywide.

Mamdani’s office and Weaver did not offer immediate comment. Meanwhile, the mayor continues stacking his housing team. On Sunday, Mamdani appointed Dina Levy, a veteran state housing official, as commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). Levy currently serves as senior vice president of single-family and community development at the state Division of Homes and Community Renewal.

“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 while appearing with her at a Bronx press conference.

The mayor also signed an executive order mandating so-called “Rental Ripoff” hearings across all five boroughs within his first 100 days in office. The order directs HPD, the Department of Buildings, the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, and the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to conduct the hearings alongside the new Office of Mass Engagement.

“Too many New Yorkers have been forced to pay more for less — living in unsafe, unconscionable, and unaffordable housing,” Mamdani 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, for her part, said she comes from an advocacy background and knows the job ahead won’t be easy. “I do know the work ahead will be hard,” she said.

HPD’s mission includes enforcing the city’s housing maintenance code — inspecting buildings, hauling landlords into housing court, and ordering emergency repairs.