You are right. I didn't readmore than the article and am not familiar with the situation and it was a gut reaction. My bad.

On a broader point regarding companies in general and housing in particular:

I live in Germany and what the us calls socialism or communism is just common sense for people that would describe themselves as slightly left of center. And the center here is more in line with the majority of the worlds country, so not an outlier. There are cooperations here of course and its not common to find people that subscribe to the idea of class war but still there is a distaste in half of the populations people when we hear about quarterly gains that are made by exploiting workers or consumers or suppliers.

We also have housing cooperation that own large amounts of units all over Germany and especially in larger city's. And people hate them. More than just the left, but a all affected. Even though the conditions that are described in the article are magnitudes worse than the occasional mold or broken heating. Its the idea that housing should not be controlled by such a powerful entity. Vonovia is one of the big ones if you want to read up and compare.

There even was a volksentscheid, a formalized and official non binding vote by the voters, of the city district of Berlin to disown the whole company or at least put it under state control because of the higher rent and conditions of the units. That is now being deliberated for the past years by politics and will be for years to come and nothing of consequence will happen.

If there was a situations there were units like the ones described In the article it would be a riot. Everybody, Not just the left would rally to get those people to prison or burn the company down. Literally.

The situation seems to be in part because the company who was responsible for the units in NYC went bankrupt. That's a feat in itself given the rent prices there and I am sure that somebody with a twirly black moustache made of with some nice cushion

But the real problem is the real estate market in general that creates these problems. I don't like renting but that's a reality. Property is a reality since socialism isn't anywhere to be found here. Or nowhere for that matter (military regimes that call them self that don't qualify).

In consequence I'd like to see people arrested. In that case the politicians that allowed this yo happen in the first place. So many ways to change the situation people are in. Nothing done. Good luck to the new Mayor in the fight against the real power: establishment