The co-chair of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America rails against rising rents, but probably doesn’t have to worry about paying for his own housing.
Financial records revealed New York City DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo resides in a $1.5 million, 2,400-square-foot row house in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood that his wealthy parents purchased for him and his brother.
Mr. Gordillo’s dad, also named Gustavo Gordillo, founded an engineering firm in South Florida whose most important client is telecommunications giant AT&T.
The parent-funded apartment turned up on Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s list of addresses that could be subject to the city’s new pied-a-terre tax. It’s listed under the name of a trust created by Mr. Gordillo’s mother and father and was first reported by the publication Jewish Insider.
“I wonder if Gustavo’s parents will pay the pied-a-terre tax on the rowhouse they bought him in Bed-Stuy,” the publication’s city hall reporter posted on X.
The younger Mr. Gustavo goes by the handle @UnionGustavo and identifies himself as a union electrician on X, but it’s not clear if he actually works in the field.
Federal Election Commission records show Mr. Gordillo listed the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers as his employer as late as March 2026 when he donated $120 to Act Blue.
He appeared on Fox News last month to promote the DSA agenda. He argued landlords are unfairly profiting from high rent.
“Landlords in New York have been making a 12% return on their investment, on average,” Mr. Gordillo said, adding that he does not believe “anyone should have a constitutional right to double-digit returns on their investment.”
The 38-year-old Mr. Gustavo, who earned a fine arts degree from Yale in 2010 and previously worked in an art gallery, may have little experience paying rent on his own.
The New York Post reported his father told the publication that prior to purchasing the Bed-Stuy row house in 2019, he covered the $2,600 monthly rent for his son’s apartment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
The Gordillo family came to the U.S. from Peru when Gustavo Gordillo was 3 years old.
The younger Gordillo portrays his family as having struggled to make it in America and said their success was an outlier among immigrants who come to the U.S. and have difficulty surviving economically.
The engineering firm founded by his father has branches in 10 U.S. cities, and his parents own several properties in South Florida.
According to the DSA’s official platform, housing should involve “a redistribution of land from the landowners to the landless,” and “must expropriate property from capitalists and deliver it to the working class.”
Mr. Gordillo’s parent-financed row house has undergone extensive renovations and restorations and now includes a posh rooftop deck.
The Washington Times reached out to Mr. Gordillo through the New York City DSA.
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