Over the past few months, Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani has climbed from relative obscurity to placing second place in a recent poll in the New York City mayoral race.
Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist who represents Astoria, Astoria Heights and Ditmars-Steinway, jumped into the race last year championing himself as a fighter for the working class. In his announcement video, Mamdani said "working people are getting pushed out of the city they built.”
The politician, also once known as rapper "Mr. Cardamom," has called for a city-wide rent freeze, the building of city-owned grocery stores, free and faster bus service, universal childcare and other progressive policies.
He has called former governor Andrew Cuomo’s campaign “Eric Adams’ second term,” and fashioned his campaign around affordability, which he calls his “north star.”
Mamdani’s rallying point has been the rent freeze on the 2.4 million rent-stabilized units. Currently, the city freezes the rents for some seniors and people on disability in rent-stabilized units.
Another major proposal is to build “200,000 union-built, permanently-affordable, rent-stabilized homes.” Mamdani said he is aware of the infrastructure challenges that come along with such a huge endeavour, especially in parts of Brooklyn like Gowanus, where the sewer system is pressured into overflowing onto the streets.
“These are the kinds of investments that have to be made in tandem with any large-scale plan for development across the city,” Mamdani said. “We need to ensure that we're not simply building housing in order to hit a statistical check mark, but rather we're building it in a manner that can sustain all of the people that it would house.”
Mamdani’s housing proposals are not limited to new units, as he wants to improve the quality of NYCHA buildings.
“Right now, it is cheaper for NYCHA to keep scaffolding up and pay the fine than it is to actually fix the facade that led them to have the scaffolding in the first place,” Mamdani said. “All of these incentives are inverted.”
He added that NYCHA’s privatization plan, Permanent Affordability Commitment Together-Rental Assistance Demonstration (PACT-RAD), which transitions NYCHA developments from Section 9 (where NYCHA is the landlord) to Section 8 (where a private company is the landlord), should be decided by the building’s tenants.
“NYCHA residents must be the ones who lead the way in determining what's necessary and what is the path forward at every NYCHA development,” he said.
Drawing on his experience as a foreclosure prevention advocat at Chyya Community Development Corporation, Mamdani noted the number of homes being bought up by “unnamed investors through LLCs" as terrible, and says he backs a ban on private equity firms from owning homes.
“There is a crisis across our city—so much of the housing that should be the home of a family is instead becoming an investment property, the site of yet another bet by private equity,” Mamdani said.
His affordability agenda isn’t limited to housing or free and faster buses. Mamdani has also promised to “put in the same kind of investments that we see in far wealthier neighborhoods into neighborhoods such as Coney Island.”
Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, and came to the U.S. when he was 7. His immigrant experience is central to his campaign and policies, and Mamdani has promised to uphold New York City’s sanctuary city laws.
The assembly member said he opposes New York City Mayor Eric Adams' push to close migrant shelters, and wants to “make sure that there is housing for [asylum seekers] and that we do that in tandem with honoring the promises that have been made to New Yorkers who've lived in this city for generations.”
Another central issue is organized labor. Mamdani was endorsed by the United Auto Workers, alongside State Senator Jessica Ramos and city Comptroller Brad Lander. He said he stands with the workers at the Brooklyn Museum, who are slated to be laid off due to a budget shortfall at the organization.
“Far too often, what we find is that whenever there is a deficit, the first impulse is to cut positions for the staffers who create so much of the joy and the excitement of these institutions,” Mamdani said.
The mayoral candidate says the city's budget can pay for all of the housing, infrastrucutre and social services upgrades he wants to implement, but would also like to raise corporate taxes.
The lack of funding available to the city's Parks Department may have contributed to the administration mismanaging the Prospect Park brush fire last fall, he said.
“The bare minimum that New Yorkers deserve is a mayor who will ensure that every single New York City agency has the resources it deserves to do its job,” Mamdani explained, adding he is committed to allocating 1% of the city budget to funding the Parks Department.
Ultimately, Mamdani said he is "committed to using every tool of city government to finally deliver a city that New Yorkers can afford."
