New York, New York - New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani attended his administration's "Rental Ripoff" hearing in the Bronx on Wednesday to engage directly with tenants about their concerns.

"Tenants' rights have been a defining priority of this administration from our first day," Mamdani told attendees of the event at Fordham University.

"That is why as one of my first acts as mayor, I signed an executive order to restore the Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants and set a standard for how City Hall can lead on behalf of tenants."

Mamdani said he had heard from tenants who told him they felt unsafe in their own homes and apartment buildings. Others said they had inadequate heating during this year's unusually brutal winter.

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One person showed him a video of a neighbor carrying her daughter who is disabled up several flights of stairs to their apartment every day, as the elevator in their building had been broken for five months.

"This is what the toll looks like when we do not have a city where every single tenant understands that safe and habitable housing is their right," the mayor said.

Mamdani said the testimonies shared during the hearing – just one of five in each of the New York City boroughs – would inform city policies and practices going forward.

Hearings have already taken place in Brooklyn and Queens, with Manhattan and Staten Island sessions still to come.

"Tonight is the start not just of testimony, but the start, in fact, of solutions," Mamdani vowed, saying his administration would release a housing plan in early May based on the results of the hearings.

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The mayor told attendees the hearings are intended for residents of market-rate, rent-stabilized, and public housing, assuring New York City Housing Authority residents that their stories would also be heard and taken seriously.

"All of your stories here today will frame public policy so that we can address the conditions here in the city of New York," said the state's Attorney General Letitia James.

"The mayor shares with me this notion that no one should live in conditions that put their life and their health at risk, and it's really critically important that we obviously address all of those issues and send a strong message to landlords: Enough is enough!"