I'm more speaking to his earnestness as a socialist. Doing charity and being the best democrat is good for the short term material conditions of New York renters but it will inevitably need to go further than that to be more than a win for the bourgeois party. If he doesn't fully believe in socialist principles (knowing that literally all landlords and capitalists are truly bad and the problem), he won't go any farther than "most progressive Democrat" which serves the interest of Democrats more than anyone