Tag: private property

During the Pandemic, NYC Communist Zohran Mamdani Called to ‘Seize’ the Homes of the Rich for the Homeless

Over the course of just a few weeks, it has been revealed that NYC communist and Democrat nominee for mayor, Zohran Mamdani has embraced nearly every stereotypical Marxist slogan that has ever been uttered.

It’s not just words, either. His entire political and policy platform is communist.

Now it is being reported that during Covid, Mamdani called on people to ‘seize’ the ‘luxury’ homes of the rich for the homeless.

Should we start with his?

FOX News reports:

Socialist NYC mayoral candidate Mamdani once called to ‘seize’ luxury homes to house homeless during COVID

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party’s candidate for New York City mayor and a self-proclaimed socialist, is once again garnering backlash for previous comments he has made espousing language steeped in radical socialist and communist ideology.

Mamdani, this time, is getting blasted for calling on the government to “seize” luxury condos to house the homeless during the coronavirus pandemic.

The unearthed remarks, stemming from a March 2020 social media post, followed news of separate rediscovered remarks from Mamdami touting the need to “de-commodify” housing through replacing luxury condos with communal-style living that would include things like shared laundry facilities and food co-ops.

“The oligarchs who want us to return to work to goose the stock market are the same ones with thousands of luxury condos as investment properties, sitting empty while NYers die on the streets & in shelters,” Mamdani wrote on social media in response to a news report claiming the first homeless person in New York City with the coronavirus had passed away amid the pandemic.

This guy makes AOC look like a moderate.

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AND THERE IT IS: California Governor Gavin Newsom Announces Funding for New ‘Multifamily Rental Housing’ After LA Wildfires

This week, we learned that less than 100 building permits have been issued in Los Angeles, six months after the destructive wildfires that destroyed entire neighborhoods like the Pacific Palisades.

Now California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced $101 million in funding for new ‘multifamily rental housing’ as a solution for housing displaced residents in the area. It almost seems like this was the goal all along.

Who could have predicted such a thing?

From the governor’s website:

Governor Newsom commits $101 million to jumpstart critical rebuilding efforts after LA Fires

Los Angeles, California – Six months after the LA Fires, Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) announced the release of $101 million to help rapidly rebuild critically needed, affordable multifamily rental housing in the fire-devastated Los Angeles region. Thousands of families are still displaced by the wildfires that raged through the Greater Los Angeles Region in January 2025, placing an incredible strain on an already tight rental market.

Tomiquia Moss, Secretary of the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency: “The State’s special Multifamily Finance Super NOFA will galvanize the collective public-private response to the wildfires in Los Angeles County, expediting and expanding opportunities to build affordable housing for low-income residents. By prioritizing affordable housing projects that are ready to go, these funds will accelerate household stability, climate and health outcomes in communities.”

No one seems very surprised by this.

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She Got a Permit for Her Chickens. Now the City Is Fining Her $80,000.

The city of Douglas, Michigan, is determined to take the “free” out of “free range.” In 2023, Kathryn Sarkisian, a resident of the Lake Michigan tourist town, wanted to do something that seemed simple enough: raise chickens in her backyard. She then sought—and received—a permit directly from the city, authorizing her to do so. Barely a month later, the city pulled an about-face, telling Sarkisian that she would have to get rid of her chickens on account of a neighbor’s complaint.

Douglas originally passed its chicken ordinance in 2020, which gives neighbors a 21-day period within which to object to nearby chicken permit requests. This process wasn’t followed, though, since the neighbor’s complaint came after the city had already issued Sarkisian’s permit. The city claimed that it had forgotten to notify the neighbors of their right to object during the review process and had therefore done so retroactively. Since one neighbor ended up objecting, Sarkisian was told she’d have to get rid of her chickens.

In the meantime, Sarkisian had spent $23,000 building a chicken coop and a privacy fence to shield the chickens from view. When Sarkisian refused to budge, the city began assessing a $300-per-day fine in November 2024. This means she is currently facing nearly $80,000 in fines for her refusal to comply with the city’s demands. Worse yet, the city hasn’t even clarified when the tolling period for the fines started—if it started from the time she began raising the chickens, the fines would now total over $200,000.

Despite the immense financial penalties at play, Sarkisian’s six plucky chickens still stride outside her back door. “I was raised in a family that loves this country, that believes in our freedom, that’s grateful for people who fought and who still fight for our freedoms,” Sarkisian told MLive in a recent interview. “And those freedoms and rights are very near and dear to me.”

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Trump admin to intervene on behalf of New Jersey family trying to stop government seizure of 175-year-old farm

ANew Jersey family trying to save their 175-year-old farm from being seized by a local government are getting support from the Trump administration.

The Cranbury city government announced its intention to seize the 21-acre farm through eminent domain in order to build low-income apartments, but the Henry family is resisting.

On Tuesday, Agriculture Sec. Brooke Rollins said the power of the federal government would intercede in the case on the side of the family.

“On the phone with Andy Henry of Highland Ranch in Cranbury, NJ. The city govt has approved seizing his 175-year-old family farm via eminent domain for affordable housing units,” wrote Rollins.

“Whether the Maudes, the Henrys or others whom we will soon announce, the Biden-style government takeover of our family farms is over,” she added. “While this particular case is a city eminent domain issue, we @usda are exploring every legal option to help.”

Andy Henry says he has received many multimillion-dollar offers for the farm, but he has denied all of them.

“Didn’t matter how much money we were offered,” Henry said. “We saved the farm no matter what. We turned down all the offers to preserve the legacy for our family, city, and even state.”

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Appeals Court Ruling Opens Door for Billions in Claims From Landlords Over Biden Admin’s COVID Eviction Ban

A federal appeals court ruled that landlords can pursue billions in damages from the federal government over the COVID-era eviction moratorium, calling into question the legality of the CDC’s actions during the pandemic.

Key Facts:

  • The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit voted 7-3 to allow landlords’ lawsuits over the federal eviction ban to proceed.
  • The CDC issued a nationwide eviction moratorium in September 2020 that lasted until August 2021.
  • Landlords argue the order violated the Fifth Amendment’s “takings” clause by denying them income and control over their property.
  • The ruling upholds a prior decision that the federal government may owe compensation for property losses during the moratorium.
  • Damages from the case could reach into the tens of billions of dollars.

The Rest of The Story:

The lawsuit centers on the CDC’s nationwide order halting residential evictions during the pandemic.

The agency acted in September 2020, following the expiration of a 120-day eviction freeze passed by Congress.

The CDC’s moratorium, aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19, remained in place until the Supreme Court struck it down in August 2021.

Landlords filed suit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, arguing the moratorium amounted to an illegal seizure of private property.

They cited the Fifth Amendment, which bars the government from taking private property without just compensation.

In 2023, a Federal Circuit panel allowed the lawsuits to proceed.

The Biden administration pushed back, but on Friday, the full court rejected its appeal.

The Justice Department warned the decision could “upend over a century of precedent,” while landlords’ attorneys countered that the government simply “wants another bite at the apple.”

The National Association of Realtors welcomed the ruling, calling it “an important win for property rights.”

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OUTRAGE: Cranbury, NJ Moves to Seize 175-Year-Old Family Farm to Make Way for ‘Affordable Housing’ Project

Another American legacy is on the chopping block—this time in deep-blue New Jersey, where local officials are ramming through a plan to bulldoze a 175-year-old family farm in the name of “affordable housing.”

NJ.com reported that Chris Henry stood before the Cranbury Township Committee, pleading with officials not to rip his family’s heritage from the soil their great-grandfather purchased in 1850.

The Henry family, whose parents both served in World War II and whose mother’s name is etched into the town’s war memorial, is now watching bureaucrats prepare to seize their 21-acre farm by force.

Their crime? Refusing to sell.

The family has poured over $200,000 into preserving the historic Middlesex County farm, which is currently leased to a local rancher who raises sheep and cattle.

Despite the property’s agricultural use and historical importance, the Cranbury Township Committee voted unanimously in May to move forward with seizing the land through eminent domain.

All of this—just to meet a state-mandated housing quota pushed by far-left courts and Trenton bureaucrats.

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Iowa Landowners Fight Seizure of Private Property for a Pipeline

A privately owned company is proposing a pipeline across five states. While some of the state governments appear to be on board, the project is facing backlash from a large and formidable population: property owners.

The pipeline, known as Summit Carbon Solutions, would span 2,500 miles and transport carbon dioxide (CO2) captured at 57 ethanol plants in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and the Dakotas to a permanent underground storage site in North Dakota. Construction of the $9 billion pipeline is expected to begin this year, with operations kicking off in 2026.

In June 2024, the project received regulatory approval from the Iowa Utilities Commission, despite landowner protests.

Julie Glade and her husband, Paul, are Iowans who oppose the project because of its use of eminent domain. Their property aligns with the proposed route, and in 2022 the couple was visited by a land agent. “The guy who came to our door wanted us to sit down and sign it without reading it,” Glade tells Reason. “They swooped in and tried to contact as many people as possible right away before the people knew what the consequences were. It’s very unethical.”

Several other landowners in the state share the Glades’ worries. During a hearing conducted by the Iowa Utility Commission, landowner Joan Gaul testified against the pipeline, which she said would cross a large portion of her farmland.

Gaul said Summit Carbon Solutions mailed two easements, which would give the pipeline a legal right to her land, to her without notice.

“This letter came telling us about taking our land using eminent domain. It was a difficult pill to swallow,” she said. Gaul said she didn’t accept the easements and has indicated that she will continue to fight the project.

The Glades visit the Iowa Capitol nearly every week to voice their opposition to the pipeline. They are joined by what the couple calls a diverse coalition united by their concern for the basic constitutional right to land ownership.

“We have MAGA Republicans and we have lefties. We put our differences aside and we work together,” she says.

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Number Of Zombie Properties Increase In 30 US States

The number of zombie homes – vacant properties abandoned by owners during the foreclosure process – rose in 30 U.S. states and the District of Columbia in the second quarter of this year from the previous quarter, real estate data analytics company ATTOM said in a May 29 statement.

Zombie homes, which can fall into disrepair and negatively impact the value of other properties in the neighborhood, are a sign of distress in the housing market and the broader economy.

As Naveen Athrappully reports for The Epoch Times, among states with at least 50 zombie homes, North Carolina saw the largest percentage increase in these properties year-over-year, with their numbers rising by 52.5 percent during this period.

This was followed by Iowa and Texas, both seeing an over 50 percent jump in zombie properties. South Carolina and Kansas were the next on the list.

According to ATTOM’s analysis, Peoria County in Illinois ranked at the top in the list of U.S. counties with the highest zombie foreclosure rates.

Broome County in New York came in second, followed by Cuyahoga County in Ohio, Baltimore City County in Maryland, and Indiana’s Marion County.

On a positive note, things looked better from a nationwide perspective, with only one out of every 14,207 being zombie properties in Q2, which ATTOM said was a low rate, indicating the strength of the post-pandemic U.S. housing market.

“Thankfully, we’re not seeing a lot of homes sitting vacant due to pending foreclosures, which is good for families, neighborhoods, and the market,” said Rob Barber, CEO of ATTOM. “However, foreclosure filings have shown a recent uptick—with April seeing a 14 percent increase compared to the same month last year.”

“So far, buyers seem to be scooping up these repossessed homes relatively quickly, so they aren’t sitting empty,” he added. “Nobody wants to see a return to the days of the 2008 housing crisis when vacant, blighted homes were common in many parts of the country.”

Meanwhile, the number of property foreclosures had risen by 11 percent in the first quarter of this year from the previous quarter, breaking away from the trend of three consecutive quarterly declines, ATTOM said in an April 11 statement.

“While levels remain below historical averages, the quarterly growth suggests that some homeowners may be starting to feel the pressure of ongoing economic challenges,” Barber said.

“However, strong home equity positions in many markets continue to help buffer against a more significant spike in distress.”

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Locked Out of the Dream: Regulation Making Homes Unaffordable Around the World

Next to inflation, Americans ranked housing as their top financial worry in a Gallup survey last May. It’s only gotten worse. January home sales were down 5% from last year’s dismal numbers. Record numbers of first-time buyers are stuck on the sidelines as housing affordability stands at the lowest level ever recorded, while one in three Americans now spend over 30% of their income on mortgage or rent. 

The housing crisis is not just an American problem, but a global phenomenon that hits the middle and working classes the hardest. Studies of the Canadian, British, European, and East Asian markets have also found that housing prices have risen far faster than household incomes and inflation. A report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development concluded that “housing has been the main driver of rising middle-class expenditure.” In prosperous and communitarian Switzerland, Zurich studios sell for well over $1 million, and small houses even more, making downpayments unaffordable to affluent people despite the overwhelming financial advantages to homeowners. 

Underlying the plight of home buyers worldwide is a sometimes overlooked but profound influence – the spread of restrictive land-use regulations. It’s reshaping political and economic alignments in ways that may further destabilize the social order. Home ownership is strongly correlated with positive social indicators, and as renting grows twice as quickly as buying, this trend poses a threat to Western democracy by deepening economic inequality, depressing demographic vitality, and undermining the upward mobility that has driven Western progress for the past century.

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Pope Leo’s Childhood Home Faces Eminent Domain as He Relocates to a More Eminent Domain

“Every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own,” wrote Pope Leo XIII, in his famous 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, laying down the basics of Catholic social teaching.

The plans of contemporary socialists to seize private property, Leo XIII denounced as “emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.”

The last Pope Leo’s defense of private property adds no small amount of irony to the small Chicago suburb of Dolton, Illinois’ plan to honor the new American-born Pope Leo XIV by seizing his childhood home from its private owners.

Yesterday, Chicago-area media reported that Dolton officials plan to use eminent domain to take the home where Leo XIV, formerly Robert Francis Prevost, was raised from its current private owners to create a publicly accessible historic site.

At present, the owners are auctioning off the small, 1949-built home for a reserve price of $250,000.

In a Tuesday letter to the auction house running the sale, Dolton attorney Burton Odelson cautioned buyers against purchasing the house.

“Please inform any prospective buyers that their ‘purchase’ may only be temporary since the Village intends to begin the eminent domain process very shortly,” reads Odelson’s letter, per NBC Chicago.

Odelson told Chicago’s ABC7 that the village had initially tried to voluntarily purchase the home but had snagged on the sale price.

“We’ve tried to negotiate with the owner. [He] wants too much money, so we will either negotiate with the auction house or, as the letter stated that I sent to the auction house, we will take it through eminent domain, which is our right as a village,” Odelson said.

One wonders how outrageous the owners’ offered sale price was given its current auction price of $250,000.

The fact that the home was once lived in by the current pope surely doesn’t enable the owners to command that much of a sale premium on what is undeniably a quite modest dwelling.

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