The Illusion of Relief: Why Zohran Mamdani’s Rent Freeze Will Make NYC’s Housing Crisis Worse

A rent freeze won’t protect New Yorkers—it will push them out faster.

New Yorkers are rightfully angry. Rents are at record highs, the housing supply is in crisis, and middle- and working-class families are getting pushed out of their own neighborhoods. But while the frustration is real, the solutions being peddled by the political class—like Zohran Mamdani’s proposed rent freeze on stabilized apartments—are not just misguided. They’re dangerous.

Let’s be clear: freezing rents may sound like justice to a crowd that’s been overburdened by rising costs, but in practice, it’s a short-sighted gimmick that will accelerate the unraveling of what’s left of our housing ecosystem.

We’ve seen this before—and it didn’t end well.

Under former Mayor Bill de Blasio—arguably the worst mayor in New York City’s history—rent freezes were implemented three separate times during his eight-year tenure. The result? A slow-motion disaster.

A 2021 Census Bureau report revealed the truth: 33% of rent-stabilized apartments had rodent infestations— double the rate of unregulated units. They were also nearly twice as likely to suffer from mold, broken elevators, heating breakdowns, peeling paint, leaky pipes, and malfunctioning toilets. These weren’t isolated incidents—this was a systemic breakdown in livability, driven directly by an inability to collect the rent needed to maintain the housing stock.

Why? Because landlords—especially small ones—were being crushed under the weight of rising insurance, taxes, utility bills, and inflation, while their rental income was frozen. Banks didn’t freeze mortgage payments. The city didn’t freeze water and tax bills. Something had to give—and under de Blasio, it did.

And while he was freezing rents for over a million stabilized tenants, de Blasio quietly raised the rent on his own Park Slope properties—showing once again that the people pushing these policies rarely suffer the consequences of them. It was one set of rules for New York City, and another for the man in Gracie Mansion.

What followed was the rise of “ghost apartments”—tens of thousands of units held off the market because it cost more to repair and operate them than they could legally collect in rent. By 2021, more than 28,000 units were classified as “awaiting renovation,” with another 27,000 withheld for ‘other’ reasons.”

And here’s the cruel irony: while low-income housing disappeared, the city experienced a net increase in higher-cost, unregulated units. The man who vowed to fight inequality wound up deepening it. A rent freeze didn’t just break the system—it broke the very people it claimed to protect.

Today, nearly half of rent-stabilized apartments in The Bronx are operating at a loss—owners are losing an average of $120 per month, per unit. That’s over 200,000 apartments under financial distress. And if you think the “Bronx is burning” days are behind us, think again. Even the NYU Furman Center warned the city that continued regulatory strangulation could tip these buildings into collapse.

So when Mamdani promises a freeze, he’s not just ignoring the past—he’s dooming the future. He’s repeating de Blasio’s mistakes with more ideological zeal, more economic ignorance, and even less concern for what’s actually happening to real people living in these buildings.

A rent freeze doesn’t fix housing—it breaks it.

When a tenant in a rent-stabilized apartment moves out—often after decades—the landlord is stuck. In many cases, they’ve had to pay hundreds of thousands (or even millions) in buyouts just to regain possession of the unit. Then they face the legal requirement to charge nearly the same rent as before, even after pouring money into repairs and renovations. It’s an economic loss that no rational person would sign up for. The result? Warehousing. Vacant apartments sit idle—not out of spite, but because renting them would mean taking a guaranteed loss.

Some owners take the loss as a write-off. Others risk renting under the table. And many face escalating threats of fines if they don't comply with regulations that force them to lose money. That’s not affordability—that’s extortion disguised as policy.

Meanwhile, Mamdani proposes even more state control—rent freezes, publicly owned grocery stores, restrictions on private rental income—without any understanding of the market or concern for the consequences. Who exactly do you think these “city-owned grocery stores” will compete with? Not Whole Foods. Not Trader Joe’s. No—they’ll suffocate neighborhood bodegas, immigrant-run shops, and mom-and-pop grocers already struggling to survive under NYC’s regulatory weight.

This isn’t progress. It’s economic warfare against the private sector—against property owners, small businesses, and anyone trying to build a life independent of government dependency.

Even today, New Yorkers can’t afford the available units without taking on roommates—and in many cases, renting out rooms is still illegal under current laws. Our leaders are criminalizing practical solutions while pretending they’re protecting tenants. It’s a trap—and a setup for massive displacement when these bad policies implode.

And the worst part? So many unsuspecting New Yorkers are falling for it.

It’s terrifying—and maddening—to watch working-class people, renters and owners alike, buy into these emotionally charged politics that have nothing to do with real solutions and everything to do with power. We’ve seen this mousetrap play out time and time again. And unfortunately, in this political moment, we are the mouse—and Zohran Mamdani is the cheese.

He talks a good game. I get it. I truly do. As a lifelong New Yorker—someone who loves this city beyond the bounds of political party loyalty—I understand the desperation. I understand why so many Millennials and Gen Z’ers are gravitating toward him. They’ve been betrayed. Sold a bill of goods by a self-righteous, out-of-touch boomer generation that hoarded opportunity, wealth, and access—then turned around and told them to pull themselves up by bootstraps they were never given.

Zohran has done what many others have failed to do—he’s acknowledged the pain. The housing crisis. The rising cost of living. The erosion of dignity. These are real problems, and many of us have been screaming into the void about them for decades.

But his solutions? They're not solutions at all. They’re recycled fantasies dressed in revolutionary language. Government-run grocery stores? Free baby strollers? Free child care, free transportation, free everything?

These aren’t policies—they’re promises that require someone else’s labor, someone else’s property, someone else’s money—and, more often than not, your tax dollars. Especially after the wealthiest investors and businesses pack up and flee to more tax-friendly, business-friendly states—as many have already promised to do. And who gets left holding the bag when that revenue disappears? Working-class New Yorkers. Again.

It’s yet another empty promise from a politician who’s never had to pay the price for being wrong.

This is the same playbook that exploited vulnerable populations throughout the 20th century—pushing dreams of equity through communism, only to deliver misery through state control. We saw it in Venezuela, where once-thriving cities collapsed under centrally planned markets and forced redistribution. We saw it in the Soviet bloc, where promises of housing and food security turned into lines, shortages, surveillance, and stagnation. That’s not the future we want for New York City.

And yet here we are—lifelong New Yorkers, many of whom have already been displaced, watching the city we built be handed over to people who didn’t grow up here, don’t understand it, and certainly don’t respect the delicate balance required to keep it livable. They come with gentrification politics in their pocket and revolutionary slogans on their lips. But all they’re doing is accelerating the collapse.

We don’t need a revolution. We need a reckoning. A moment of clarity.

We need to stop punishing homeowners and small landlords, and start building policy that actually works. We need to stop glorifying political performance artists who weaponize empathy without offering viable outcomes. And we need to stop mistaking radical redistribution for sustainable reform.

Because if we don’t, there won’t be a New York left to fight for.