The Democrats are gearing up for the 2026 midterms with their newest favorite buzzword: “affordability.” They think they can sell it as a winning message, but the word doesn’t mean what their gullible voters think it means. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani sells it as one thing, while covering up what it actually means. And it’s not pretty.
Earlier this month, Mamdani introduced his new Housing Preservation and Development Department (HPD) commissioner, Dina Levy, at an event in the Bronx meant to showcase the future of “affordable housing.” The site selection was no accident. It was at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, the same building that, back in 2011, Levy helped convert from private ownership to nonprofit control through the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, securing a $5.6 million city loan in the process.
Mamdani praised her as a visionary, declaring, “Dina will no longer be petitioning HPD from the outside. She will now be leading it from the inside, delivering the kind of change that can transform lives.”
That was the story Mamdani sold to the public. But the building itself tells a very different one.
The so-called model project under Levy’s leadership is actually a cautionary tale. The building is rat-infested, falling apart, and riddled with code violations—194 of them, to be precise. Eighty-eight are “Class C,” the city’s most serious category, meaning “immediately hazardous.” Residents report broken doors, mold, broken appliances, chronic heating failures, and weeks-long waits for basic repairs. In short, it’s exactly what people imagine when they hear the phrase “government housing.”
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Even the tenants say the building ran better before Levy’s nonprofit took over.
Mordistine Alexander, who has lived there since 1999, told reporters that things have gone downhill under the nonprofit. “I preferred it when it was under private management,” she said. “Since they took over, no one is maintaining it, and the complaints fall on deaf ears.” These are the same “affordability” programs Democrats hold up as models for the nation, where housing is affordable because everyone lives in a slum.
Still, Mamdani hasn’t wavered. He keeps promoting nonprofit ownership as the salvation of the city’s housing crisis.
When Mamdani talks about New York’s housing crisis, his solution amounts to building government-funded slums and calling it progress. His voters rallied behind a campaign saturated with promises of “affordable” housing, “affordable” living, and “affordable” everything else. What they did not grapple with was what that agenda actually delivers once slogans turn into policy. They soon will.
“Affordability” is the slogan, but fine print has always been the problem. It’s not “affordability” that is being sold; it’s more government control, higher long-term costs, declining standards, and a permanent excuse machine when the outcomes fall apart. Mamdani promises that replacing private ownership with state-backed nonprofits will magically improve daily life. The evidence says otherwise. Eventually, every socialist utopian blueprint crashes into reality, and the result is the same: buildings like 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, plagued by rats, mold, and decay.
