Gay Gen-Z New York City Council member Chi Ossé has successfully done something that has failed in past attempts — ending the longtime practices of having apartment-seekers pay expensive brokers’ fees… and he did it, in part, by using social media videos.
Ossé, an anti-police brutality activist who was elected to the city council in November 2021, helped successfully pass the Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act. The law, which passed with a veto-proof majority in November, will require brokers’ fees to be paid by whoever hired the broker (usually landlords looking to promote their vacancies). Previously, apartment-seekers had to pay the fee, adding thousands of dollars to the already expensive relocation process.
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Past council members had tried to pass the law in 2019, but reportedly failed after intense lobbying efforts from the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY). New York State tried a similar measure in 2020, but its attempt was thwarted barely a month later due to a REBNY lawsuit. Ossé tried passing the measure last year, but couldn’t even get the ordinance a hearing in a committee.
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However, Ossé began using videos posted on TikTok and Instagram accounts to help raise awareness about the issue and mobilize constituents in favor of his bill. He began posting videos about his bill in 2023, but he wasn’t able to bring it to a vote last year.
This year, he got stakeholders in real estate and big labor unions to help organize in support of his bill. Before its final city council vote, he posted a video encouraging New Yorkers to show up for a rally in support of it. It ended up passing with 42 of 51 city council votes.
“We had a very packed hearing, with enormous turnout at the hearing on both sides of the issue,” Council Member Julie Menin told City & State New York. Julie, who is chair of the Consumer and Worker Protection Committee, added, “[Ossé] and his team did a great job with the social media to get people to know about the issue, to get involved in the issue, to come to the hearing and rallies.”
An anonymous city council source told the publication, “I think he was able to generate attention around the bill in a way that made the bill synonymous with himself. People know this bill is a Chi Ossé bill. This is a Chi Ossé-led victory, and I think that there’s lots of benefits to that, not only as a council member delivering for New Yorkers, but also as a candidate who’s going to run for reelection next year.”
While the videos alone aren’t responsible for ending the deeply unpopular practice, Ossé’s social media influence certainly helped. He has over 68,900 Instagram followers and over 34,400 TikTok followers.
His communications director and social media maven, Elijah Fox, Ossé’s said that, in 2021, the council member’s social media got 2 million unique page impressions every month.
“There must be some political power tied to that fact,” Fox said, adding that algorithms have helped his videos reach far beyond just his followers, making him recognizable to everyday people on the city’s streets. “Two million pageviews in a city with 1 million voters is relevant at minimum.”
Last year, Ossé was honored by LGBTQ Nation‘s sibling publication INTO as one of the “25 under 25” queer people to look out for. He swept the Democratic primary and general election and became the co-Chair of the Brooklyn Delegation and the Chair of the NYC Council Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries, and International Intergroup Relations. He also focused his political capital on developing human-centered public safety solutions (like community alternatives to police) and creating innovative ways to combat the city’s housing crisis.
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