As Mayor Zohran Mamdani moves quickly to reshape New York City’s housing apparatus, scrutiny is intensifying around one of his most controversial new appointees and the ideology she publicly embraced before taking office.
According to the New York Post, Cea Weaver, recently named director of the city’s Office to Protect Tenants, is facing backlash after resurfaced social media posts revealed past calls to abolish private property, denounce home ownership, and promote communist politics.
The posts, originally shared on Weaver’s X account and later deleted, were uncovered by online researchers and circulated widely over the weekend.
“Seize private property!” Weaver wrote on June 13, 2018.
She expanded on that sentiment in August 2019, delivering a sweeping denunciation of ownership itself.
“Private property including any kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy,” she said.
Weaver also encouraged her followers to push the city further left politically. In December 2017, she urged supporters to “Elect more communists” while commenting on the renaming of a Harlem street corner honoring former Manhattan Rep. Vito Marcantonio, a known communist.
Her rhetoric extended beyond housing. During the unrest following George Floyd’s death in May 2020, Weaver sharply criticized law enforcement.
“The Police Are Just People The State Sanctions To Murder W[ith] Immunity,” she posted.
Weaver is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and previously worked as a campaign coordinator for Housing Justice For All. She also served as an adviser to Mamdani’s 2025 mayoral campaign and was later profiled by The Post as part of a group of young progressive figures shaping his policy agenda.
In 2019, Weaver played a central role in lobbying the Democratic-controlled state Legislature to overhaul New York’s rent stabilization laws, pushing them in a more tenant-friendly direction.
Not everyone is convinced the approach is workable. Humberto Lopes, founder and CEO of the Gotham Housing Alliance, criticized both Mamdani and Weaver.
“Without landlords how to do you build and maintain housing? You think the government is going to do it? Look at NYCHA [New York City Housing Authority complexes],” Lopes said.
“You put a system in place to destroy landlords. Why are you s–tting on us?” he added.
Mamdani has proposed freezing rents on roughly 1 million rent-regulated apartments, a plan that would require approval from the Rent Guidelines Board.
At the same time, the mayor announced additional housing moves Sunday, including appointing Dina Levy as commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
“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 at a Bronx press conference.
Levy, a longtime state housing official, acknowledged the scale of the task ahead.
“I do know the work ahead will be hard,” she said.
Mamdani also signed an executive order launching “Rental Ripoff” hearings across all five boroughs within his first 100 days, calling them a first step toward confronting what he described as unsafe and unaffordable housing conditions across the city.
