By Clio Chang
On November 3, 2026, Claire Valdez won New York’s District 7 House seat by a wide margin against Republican candidate Melvin Rivera, cementing a major victory for the democratic socialist movement in federal politics. Long before her decisive win at the ballot box, Valdez—who rents a two-bedroom apartment in Ridgewood—positioned her campaign around a fundamental shift in housing politics. Running to take over the open congressional seat previously held by Nydia Velázquez, Valdez stepped into a district that, like most of New York City, is overwhelmingly populated by tenants.
Her primary campaign drew significant attention and high-profile friction. Backed by fellow democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, Valdez entered a competitive primary race against Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, who carried the endorsement of Velázquez, alongside Councilmember Julie Won. Polling leading up to the election showed Valdez and Reynoso locked in a tight race, with a massive block of voters—some 43 percent—describing themselves as undecided heading into the final stretch.
Amid this political backdrop, Valdez shared her comprehensive housing plan in an exclusive interview. The platform introduced by the 36-year-old assemblymember calls for universal rent control, a federal iteration of New York’s Good Cause Eviction protections, a major expansion of new public housing, and an aggressive, interventionist approach to stripping properties from landlords with persistent records of building neglect. While elements of this platform run parallel to local efforts spearheaded by Mamdani in New York City, Valdez’s vision scales these interventions up to the federal level, raising fundamental questions about how national tenant protections can actually function and whether they can survive the current political landscape.
The Origins of a Federal Housing Platform
Reflecting on the grassroots roots of her campaign, Valdez emphasizes that District 7 is a 77 percent tenant constituency. As a renter herself, she views her policy platform as an opportunity to put tenant power front and center while directly challenging the outsized influence of the real estate industry in New York City and across the nation.
"So NY-7 is a 77 percent tenant district," Valdez explained. "I myself am a tenant, and I’m excited to prioritize something that puts tenant power really front and center and tries to tackle the influence of the real-estate industry in New York City. So this platform is really about making sure that we have power to organize and identifying the federal government as an actor that should really be leading in building more housing and thinking through how we address the supply-side issues."
Bringing Universal Rent Control Back to the National Stage
Valdez’s platform doubles down on some of the most fiercely contested housing policies in New York, a state where landlords have continually taken rent stabilization to court in an effort to dismantle tenant protections. Central to her vision is the revival of universal rent control, a policy framework that has deep historical roots in American governance.
Universal rent control was originally established as a federal program back in the 1940s, administered through a network of local boards. Remarkably, President Richard Nixon famously froze rents across the United States as part of his 1971 price controls. For Valdez, these historical precedents serve as a vital reminder that the federal government possesses the inherent power to intervene in the housing market when working people are being squeezed by rising costs—it is simply a matter of political will.
During World War II, the federal Office of Price Administration established local boards to administer price controls, including rent caps, across the country. That historical system ultimately became the foundation for New York City’s modern rent regulation model. Valdez argues that the federal government should once again assist states in building a similar infrastructure: local rent boards that examine local market conditions and give tenants a direct say in how rents are set. Under her proposal, the federal government could provide vital funding, national standards, and oversight to support states in establishing county-level rent boards nationwide.
The current system in places like New York City, Valdez notes, arbitrarily denies rent regulation to millions of tenants by enforcing narrow criteria, such as only covering buildings with six or more units constructed before 1974 that were not deregulated before the sweeping tenant protection laws of 2019. In her view, those arbitrary exclusions have to change.
Holding Slumlords Accountable Through Federal Leverage
Beyond rent regulation, Valdez proposes a muscular role for the federal government when it comes to intervening in distressed properties and taking buildings out of the hands of negligent landlords. Across major urban centers, tenants face frequent battles with landlords who refuse—or claim they are financially unable—to make basic repairs.
Valdez argues that the federal government currently holds immense financial leverage that it fails to utilize. Entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac finance roughly half of the nation’s multifamily housing market, meaning federal backing is frequently enabling irresponsible property owners and slumlords. Instead of maintaining the status quo, Valdez suggests conditioning that federal financing on strict habitability standards, with foreclosure serving as the ultimate penalty for noncompliance. Furthermore, the government could leverage eminent domain to purchase severely neglected buildings outright.
This approach dovetails with federal legislation like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Homes Act, which aims to create a federal housing developer for social housing, repeal the restrictive Faircloth Act, and inject substantial funding into the embattled New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). Valdez views the Homes Act as critical to the broader puzzle because it does not merely build new housing from scratch; it can actively acquire tenants’ buildings, rehabilitate them using union labor, and convert them into permanently affordable social housing shielded from corporate speculators. The federal government, she argues, must be willing to operate this model at scale.
Lessons From Local Housing Battles and Public Ownership
The challenges of shifting ownership away from bad actors were recently highlighted in New York City when the mayoral administration attempted to intervene in the high-profile Pinnacle sale, a massive transaction that transferred 5,000 rent-stabilized units between two large landlords, both of whom carried troubled track records. Ultimately, the intervention did not halt the deal, and the sale proceeded as planned.
Valdez sees clear lessons in the Pinnacle outcome. First, she stresses that no matter what housing policy passes—even the most aggressively pro-tenant planks of her platform—tenants must actively organize to assert their rights. The very idea of transferring the Pinnacle portfolio to public or community ownership would not have even entered public discussion without months of dedicated tenant organizing. Second, municipal and federal governments need established infrastructure ready to move quickly when opportunities arise.
While supporting local proposals such as Assemblymember Emily Gallagher’s push for a New York State Social Housing Development Authority, Valdez maintains that meeting the true scale of the housing crisis requires direct federal intervention. Rather than viewing the Pinnacle outcome as a total failure, she notes that the new ownership entity, Summit Properties, committed to making $30 million worth of repairs and clearing all building violations. Tenants will still face the heavy lift of holding them accountable, and Valdez wants to see the government actively providing tenants with the legal and financial tools to do just that.
Rescuing NYCHA and Addressing Disinvestment
The most obvious arena for immediate federal change is NYCHA, which has suffered from decades of severe underfunding and deferred maintenance. The resulting backlog of repairs has left residents grappling with broken elevators, recurring mold, lead paint hazards, and persistent pest infestations.
Valdez describes the decades of federal disinvestment as disgusting, viewing it as part of a broader right-wing assault on public goods designed to dismantle public programs and social entitlements across the country. Restoring NYCHA to the standard of living residents deserve requires dedicated federal appropriations.
At the same time, debates continue over strategies like Mayor Mamdani’s plan to utilize the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) and PACT programs to fund major renovations in NYCHA developments—a strategy that has encountered fierce pushback from residents wary of introducing private management into public housing. Valdez emphasizes that any public housing development considering RAD/PACT must engage in a deeply democratic process that allows tenants to make the ultimate decision. She traces the root of the dilemma directly back to systemic federal disinvestment, which has left residents facing painful choices. Ultimately, she aims to fight in Congress for the robust, direct public investments necessary to ensure public housing communities are well-funded, beautiful, and expanded.
Pragmatism, Resistance, and Actionable Goals
In the current political environment, particularly under a federal administration hostile to progressive intervention, many of these sweeping housing proposals are frequently dismissed as nonstarters. Critics often question why lawmakers invest political capital in ideas that face steep structural barriers—such as the fact that rent control remains entirely illegal in more than 30 states, preventing cities like Chicago from enacting local caps even if they choose to do so.
Valdez draws inspiration from ongoing grassroots campaigns to bring rent control to states like Massachusetts, hoping that keeping the issue visible in the national conversation helps tenants fight for housing justice wherever they reside until the political momentum builds to win those protections nationally.
When looking at what can be accomplished in the near term, Valdez focuses on pragmatic, actionable steps. Bringing federal funding back to NYCHA, working directly with NYCHA tenant associations on immediate remediation efforts, and supporting grassroots tenant unions organizing across District 7 represent the core priorities she is eager to pursue in Washington.
