{"id":134727,"date":"2026-02-15T23:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T23:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/134727\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T23:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T23:45:09","slug":"zohran-mamdanis-rental-ripoff-hearings-will-ban-nycha-tenant-complaints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/134727\/","title":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani’s ‘rental ripoff’ hearings will ban NYCHA tenant complaints"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s \u201crental ripoff\u201d hearings <\/a>will ban testimony from public housing tenants \u2014 even though the government agency running the units is routinely called the \u201cworst\u201d in the five boroughs.<\/p>\n

The democratic socialist\u2019s administration will host its first complaint session on Feb. 26, but the much-touted program will only focus on renters and landlords in privately owned buildings and not the half a million tenants of the New York City Housing Authority.<\/a><\/p>\n

Property owners fumed about the city dodging questions about the public units while also encouraging tenants in private property to attend the sessions to testify about landlord abuses such as \u201crental junk fees\u201d for amenities including keeping pets.<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s \u201crental ripoff\u201d hearings will not include testimony from NYCHA tenants. Stephen Yang for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city\u2019s own tenants\u2014those living in public housing\u2014are demanding a real plan to improve their living conditions,\u201d said Humberto Lopes, CEO of Gotham Housing Alliance. \u201cIt appears the Mamdani administration woke up to their own hypocrisy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf these hearings were truly about holding bad landlords accountable, the over 500,000 residents in NYCHA would be able to meaningfully participate,\u201d Lopes added. \u201cThis is clearly the city trying to distract from its own failures while putting on a show, instead of having a real conversation with property owners, renters, NYCHA residents, and everyone else about how to improve housing for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s team was forced to address the slight, quietly updating a message on the city\u2019s website to include a Q&A answering \u201cAre these hearings for NYCHA residents too?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile these hearings focus on price gouging and living conditions for private-market renters, senior leadership and staff from NYCHA will be on-site to ensure that residents can submit in-apartment repair requests, file heat\/hot water complaints, or discuss development-wide issues,\u201d the updated note said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the coming months, our administration will release a housing plan focused on improving housing quality for all New Yorkers, including those in public housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Water damage seen at NYCHA\u2019s Beach 41st Street Houses community center in Rockaway, Queens on Feb. 4, 2026. Stephen Yang for NY Post<\/p>\n

NYCHA is infamously featured as the city\u2019s<\/a> worst landlord <\/a>in reports put out by the city public advocate\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

The agency has been placed under a federal monitor <\/a>since 2019 over hazardous conditions and other scandals such as falsely certifying inspections.<\/p>\n

Mamdani defended focusing the hearings solely on privately-owned apartments.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we are going to be approaching the housing crisis in a wide variety of ways. One of those are these rental rip off hearings,\u201d Mamdani told reporters Sunday at an unrelated event on Coney Island.<\/p>\n

The Mamdani administration is encouraging New Yorkers to complain about things like \u201crental junk fees.\u201d Instagram\/zohrankmamdani<\/p>\n

Hizzoner also blamed the federal government for disinvesting in NYCHA, which requires a staggering $80 billion in capital improvements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will also continue to work with NYCHA residents to ensure that they are being delivered the quality of service they\u2019ve long been denied,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cAnd while we know that so much of the reason that NYCHA residents are living through a system that requires around $80 billion of capital improvements. By last count, is a lack of commitment from the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

But Lopez and other critics said the hearings that focus only on privately-owned apartment buildings is just one example of Mamdani\u2019s misguided housing policy and ideology, which includes wanting the city Rent Guidelines Board to freeze the rent on the city\u2019s nearly 1 million rent-regulated apartments.<\/p>\n

Cea Weaver<\/a>, his director of the Mayor\u2019s Office to Protect Tenants, has come under fire for past statements that disparaged home ownership<\/a> as a \u201cweapon of white supremacy\u201d and calling on the government to \u201cseize private property.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cea Weaver, the director of the Mayor\u2019s Office to Protect Tenants, has called home ownership a \u201cweapon of white supremacy.\u201d James Messerschmidt for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cImpoverish the white middle class. Homeownership is racist\/failed public policy,\u201d she once said.<\/p>\n

\u201cElect more communists,\u201d Weaver also said.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s hearings will include the Mayor\u2019s Office to Protect Tenants, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Department of Buildings, and the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, according to the mayor\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

Other agencies such as NYCHA will also be available but only \u201cto provide resources.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s \u201crental ripoff\u201d hearings will ban testimony from public housing tenants \u2014 even though the government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[24225,2954,57,9,11,10,305,30128,7978,58,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-134727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-landlord-tenant-disputes","9":"tag-landlords","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-nycha","15":"tag-slumlords","16":"tag-tenants","17":"tag-us-news","18":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}