New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Sunday announced the appointment of housing advocate Dina Levy as commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and said the city will conduct hearings across the five boroughs where New Yorkers can lodge their rental complaints against their landlord.
Levy brings decades of experience fighting for safe, dignified and affordable housing, both inside government and alongside tenants, officials said. As HPD commissioner, she will oversee efforts to preserve rent-stabilized housing, finance and build new affordable homes, connect New Yorkers to housing resources and strengthen enforcement to ensure apartments across the city meet basic standards of safety and habitability.
“Levy is an experienced and fearless housing leader and I know that she will fight to protect tenants and tackle our housing crisis head-on,” Mamdani said in a statement.
Levy most recently served as senior vice president of homeownership and community development at New York State Homes and Community Renewal, the state’s affordable housing agency, where she worked on housing finance and development initiatives.
Earlier in her career, she served as a senior advisor to the New York attorney general and as director of organizing at the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, where she helped tenants organize to protect their homes and hold landlords accountable. City officials said her background gives her direct experience across the full scope of HPD’s mission.
Alongside the appointment, Mamdani signed an executive order launching a series of “Rental Ripoff” hearings across the city within the first 100 days of his administration. The hearings, to be coordinated by HPD, the Department of Buildings, the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants and the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, will allow renters to publicly share experiences with poor building conditions, hidden fees and other practices that drive up housing costs.
Testimony from the hearings will be compiled into a public report identifying common issues and policy opportunities, with the stated goal of informing future enforcement and legislative actions. Details about the hearings will be posted at nyc.gov/RentalRipoff.
