Mamdani’s Director Of Tenant Protection Breaks Down After Brutal First Week On The Job

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Director of Tenant Protection might need some protection herself after a tough first week on the job left her in tears.

On Monday, Cea Weaver caught flak for old social media posts, including one claiming home ownership was a weapon of white supremacy. On Tuesday, she struggled to defend the Mamdani administration’s controversial housing policies in a Spectrum News interview. And on Wednesday, a reporter confronted the housing radical about her mother’s $1.6 million Nashville home.

Instead of responding, Weaver reportedly started crying and ran back inside her apartment. The 37-year-old activist has a history of complaining about gentrification, including in her Brooklyn neighborhood — where she is herself a gentrifier.

It’s a rough start for Weaver, who is expected to play a major role in Mamdani’s administration. The tenant czar is slated to direct Mamdani’s “Rental Ripoff Hearings,” struggle sessions in which residents of all five boroughs will be able to publicly voice their complaints about their rental experience.

“Working New Yorkers will be able to speak about the challenges they face,” from behind a microphone, Mamdani says, “from poor building conditions to hidden fees on rent payments.” The Mamdani administration says it will then identify “common themes” in the complaints to “directly inform policy interventions to take on these ripoff tactics.”

Mamdani already gave one tenant the floor at a press conference announcing the “Rental Ripoff” hearings. Josie Wells is a tenant at 85 Clarkson Avenue, a rent-stabilized apartment building in Brooklyn. Wells complained about the “dirty walls that haven’t seen a fresh coat of paint in years, cabinets hanging precariously in kitchens and bathrooms, [and] cracked plaster [that] zig-zags across ceilings and hallways.”

85 Clarkson Avenue is one of the many properties owned by the Pinnacle Group, which filed for bankruptcy in May 2025, and was featured at this press conference.

At the press conference, a sign read, “As we rise, Pinnacle will fall.” The sign was displayed by the Union of Pinnacle Tenants, who organized to fight “for a say in the auction process to ensure that repairs are made, our rent stabilization is respected, and our buildings aren’t sold to yet another abusive landlord.”

Advisors to Pinnacle Group said that “the bankruptcies were caused by a sharp rise in interest rates, inflation-driven increases in operating expenses, and lower rent collections.”

Weaver says the Mamdani administration has gotten involved to ensure the building goes to someone who can pay for upkeep while also complying with rent price caps.

“The city intervened in the bankruptcy proceeding in order for the city to take a hard look at the conditions that are in the building as well as a plan that has been put forth by the top bidder, because we want to ensure that whoever is taking on this portfolio is able to comply with both rent stabilization laws as well as housing maintenance code.”

As of now, it is unclear if there is a bidder who fits that description.