Queens Meeting Member and mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani holding a hat studying “freeze the rent” at an April rally.
Photograph by Lloyd Mitchell
Queens Meeting Member Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic mayoral marketing campaign recieved help from the Tenants Political Motion Committee (PAC), New York News discovered on Wednesday — a choice that provides to the lengthy listing of progressive organizations backing the Democratic socialist’s Metropolis Corridor bid.
Tenants PAC advised New York News forward of its Might 14 announcement that it will again Mamdani whereas encouraging voters to rank “tenant-friendly” candidates within the 4 remaining spots on their ballots, as a substitute of formally backing some other contenders. Nonetheless, the group is urging voters to not rank former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the present front-runner within the mayor’s race, who resigned in 2021 amid a number of sexual misconduct allegations that he denies.
Tenants PAC Political Director Esteban Girón mentioned the group is supporting Mamdani as a result of one in all his core marketing campaign pledges is freezing the lease for town’s roughly a million stabilized tenants.
“Since the start of his campaign, Zohran is the only candidate who has consistently advocated for a rent freeze,” Girón mentioned in a press release. “His bold, progressive vision for renters is exactly what this city needs. In an existential moment for tenants — who are fighting tooth and nail to afford to stay in the city we built — it’s imperative we elect a fighter like Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor.”
Mamdani has already picked up help from different pro-tenant teams together with the New York State Tenant Bloc, which ranked him first, and Church buildings United for Truthful Housing Motion.
“Tenants are the majority and it’s time we had a Mayor who acted like it,” Mamdani mentioned in a press release. “That’s why I am so proud to receive the endorsement of Tenants PAC who have been leaders in the fight for safe, affordable, dignified homes for each and every New Yorker.”
The group will maintain a rally with Mamdani, Tenants Bloc, and the latter group’s different endorsed candidate — metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander — at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem on Thursday.
Mamdani was the primary main Democratic candidate to name for freezing lease will increase on stabilized tenants. If elected, he mentioned he would accomplish this by means of the Lease Pointers Board (RGB); all 9 members of the panel are appointed by the mayor.
He has additionally efficiently pushed different candidates, together with Lander and Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams to heat as much as the concept of a lease freeze — although they haven’t but dedicated to implementing one as mayor.
Mayor Eric Adams’ RGB appointees have opted to extend rents throughout every of his final three years in workplace. It raised rents by 2.75% for one-year leases final yr and 3% the yr earlier than.
Mamdani additionally appeared to take goal at Cuomo, whom progressive pols and tenant advocates have painted as beholden to moneyed actual property pursuits, given the big inflow of donations from trade honchos to a brilliant PAC supporting his marketing campaign. They argue that Cuomo will prioritize the whims of landlords over working-class tenants.
“Together, we will defeat the candidate of the real estate titans and deliver the housing justice our city deserves,” Mamdani mentioned, presumably referring to Cuomo, who has referred to as freezing the lease a “politically convenient posture.”
Progressives additionally cost that Cuomo’s actions over his 11 years as governor, together with defunding a rental help voucher program in 2011, drove rents by means of the roof and fueled town’s homelessness disaster.
