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At Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s inaugural “rental ripoff” hearing on Thursday, hundreds of New York City tenants aired their housing grievances, yet many remain skeptical about whether their landlord issues will see resolution.
Approximately 500 tenants registered to engage in individual discussions with Mamdani’s contentious tenant advocate, Cea Weaver, alongside volunteers from multiple city agencies. The hearing, held in Downtown Brooklyn, served as a platform for tenants to express their longstanding disputes with landlords and housing concerns.
Weaver kicked off the event, which drew criticism from New York City Housing Authority residents for not adequately addressing their issues, by highlighting key topics for tenants to discuss with city advocates. These included additional fees for amenities such as pet ownership and issues surrounding code enforcement.
“What are the monthly costs beyond your rent that are driving up housing expenses in the city?” Weaver asked the assembled tenants.
Residents of privately-owned buildings stepped forward with their complaints about persistent housing quality issues and landlord disputes. Despite assurances from the Mamdani administration, many tenants remain doubtful that their situations will improve.
“Mamdani’s made a pretty big statement about how he wants to get tenants’ rights recognized, and I think it’s great they’re having these kinds of meetings in the first place,” said Brooklyn renter Alex Reddihough.
“I’m not sure anything will come from this, but at least the city is giving an opportunity.”
The 41-year-old structural engineer who lives with his wife in Prospect Heights was first to line up for the hearing around 4 p.m. outside of K605 George Westinghouse High School.
“I’ve got some hope that the new mayor is going to enforce the regulations and understand what people are having to deal with,” he said.
Reddihough has been in the same rent-stabilized one-bedroom unit on Eastern Parkway for years, paying $2,950 rent a month — but has dealt with mouse infestations, heat and hot water issues, and repeated “patch jobs” of other maintenance issues.
Residents have filed multiple 311 complaints, but they get closed out within “hours,” he recalled, alleging no one from the city ever actually comes to check complaints.
Though he belongs to a tenant association, Reddihough said many older rent-stabilized tenants are afraid to report problems over fears of eviction.
“It makes me sad that they’re kind of scared and they don’t feel like there’s an avenue to make the state of living better,” he said.
Joshua Rodriguez, a Red Hook resident on Coffey Street for over 40 years, spoke one-on-one with Weaver during the hearing for advice on how to move forward with his housing court case and enforce repairs in his building.
“It’s cool that it exists in general because in my lifetime I haven’t really seen anything like this,” Rodriguez said of the hearing. “Most of the time, we get ignored, especially people of color and people who are lifelong New Yorkers.”
“I guess I don’t have too much faith in the government, but this new administration, maybe, maybe we’ll see a little bit of a change,” he said.
The start of the meeting was disrupted by a notorious online agitator who calls herself “Crackhead Barney.”
The profane performance artist stormed the stage and took to the podium, where she shouted, “NYCHA [tenants] should be allowed to speak today. NYCHA should be allowed in the motherf–cking building. NYCHA should be allowed to speak. This is bulls–t.”
“There’s no tenants association without NYCHA. Poor people have a f–king voice.”
NYCHA tenants — nor any tenant — was given time to provide their public testimony during the hearing and were instead offered one-on-one meetings.
Public housing residents can still attend the forums and speak individually with NYCHA officials in attendance about repairs, heat or hot water issues and other worries, according to the mayor’s office.
The city is planning to host separate, additional tenant engagement for NYCHA tenants, a City Hall spokesperson said.