New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has announced a new city office to fight unscrupulous and often illegal methods by which city residents are losing their homes. The fight against “deed theft,” which disproportionately impacts New Yorkers of color, comes after a Black city council member was violently arrested while protesting against the eviction of a Black woman from her home.
New York City council member arrested, highlights deed theft
The recent fight by New York City government officials against “deed theft” gained national prominence last week when city council member Chi Ossé was forcefully arrested while protesting the eviction of 54-year-old Bed-Stuy resident Carmella Charrington, who advocates claim is being removed from her family’s home of 60 years without sufficient due process. Video of Ossé being thrown to the ground went viral.
Ossé addressed his arrest and the plight of the woman whose rights he was defending, highlighting the prominence of deed theft in New York City. “I showed up because I could not, in good faith, allow the displacement of a Black family in my district,” Ossé said in a video statement about his arrest. Ossé said that Charrington’s case fit a “pattern” of “speculators targeting heirs in Black neighborhoods, using legitimate-looking paperwork to extract generational wealth from families who have lived in these homes for decades.”
Mamdani reacted to Ossé’s arrest, calling it “incredibly concerning to hear.” The mayor pledged to reporters, “That’s exactly something that we’re going to follow up on, not just on the nature of this arrest, but also what was the underlying issue that was being protested.”
Mamdani launches new office to fight deed theft as attention grows
Days later, Mamdani addressed the issue directly, stating, “Scammers are stealing homes from New Yorkers — and Black and Brown homeowners are being targeted the most.” In response to this situation, the mayor announced: “We’re launching the Mayor’s Office of Deed Theft Prevention, led by Director Peter White, to defend vulnerable homeowners.” Mamdani additionally announced that the city will be “pausing the tax lien sale for the next six months as we review and fix a broken system,” referring to a moratorium on the process by which the city sells unpaid property tax and utility debt to private interests that can charge residents high interest rates or even contribute to foreclosure proceedings. “We are using every tool at our disposal to help New Yorkers stay in their homes in the city we love,” Mamdani said in his announcement.
White explained that the new office he will run “will focus on three central tenets. Number one, deed fraud identification. Number two, deed fraud prevention. And number three, deed fraud correction and remediation.” New York City Attorney General Letitia James, who was present at the mayor’s announcement, called on New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Secretary of State Walter Mosley to do more to fight deed theft, such as by banning predatory real estate solicitations that are used by scammers. “The secretary of state today — today, with a pen — can designate districts, particularly in Central Brooklyn, as cease-and-desist zones,” James argued. “We must save homes. We must save generational wealth, and we must do it together.”
The rapid mobilization of New York City officials, including Mamdani and James, shows that Ossé’s protests not only gained attention but sparked action. As the mayor’s new Office of Deed Theft Prevention comes online and as calls grow for state officials to implement their own policies, it appears that homeowners of color in New York City have gained powerful advocates in the fight to protect them from immoral and often illegal attempts to take their property.
