A Brooklyn pastor is calling on the co-chair of New York City's Democratic Socialists of America chapter to step down after a string of revelations about a luxury townhouse, unpaid rent, and a union apprenticeship he was fired from.
Rev. Kevin McCall, a civil rights leader who works with tenants in New York City public housing complexes, publicly demanded Gustavo Gordillo's resignation on Saturday, laying out five specific concerns he wants the NYC-DSA leadership to address. Gordillo, 38, leads the local chapter of the same organization that has styled itself as the political home of working-class New Yorkers fighting landlords, developers, and corporate greed. The gap between that branding and Gordillo's own circumstances is now the story.
Gordillo lives in a two-story, nearly 2,000-square-foot row home in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, a property his parents purchased in 2019 through a company called Chucuito LLC for just under $1 million, the New York Post reported. That home is now valued at roughly $1.5 million. His parents, immigrants from Peru who built a construction fortune in South Florida, also own a five-bedroom, six-bathroom home in Boca Raton, Florida, currently listed for $3.1 million, and a slightly larger five-bedroom, seven-bathroom property in Weston, Florida, worth approximately $3 million.
Gordillo, a Yale-educated former liberal arts student who goes by the handle @uniongustavo on X, draws a $95,000 salary from the DSA. He has presented himself as a union electrician. But the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 3 fired him from its apprenticeship program in March after he stopped showing up for months, and the union said last week that he never qualified to become a fully credentialed electrician.
That combination, the millionaire parents, the luxury Brooklyn property acquired through a corporate entity, the inflated union credentials, and the DSA paycheck, is what prompted McCall to go public.
McCall did not hold back. In a public statement, the Brooklyn pastor framed the situation as a test of whether the DSA lives by the rules it demands of others:
"The Democratic Socialists of America have become the Double Standards of America, demanding transparency, fairness, and accountability from everyone else while ignoring serious questions about one of their own."
He went further, directly challenging DSA-aligned elected officials to weigh in:
"The allegations surrounding NYC chapter co-chair Gustavo Gordillo raise troubling questions about whether he misled working-class New Yorkers about where he lived, how he obtained housing, and his labor credentials. DSA leaders and elected officials must answer these questions publicly and call for Gordillo's resignation."
McCall's demand carries weight in part because of the community he represents. He works with residents in New York City Housing Authority buildings, the aging, underfunded public housing complexes where tenants deal with mold, broken elevators, leaking pipes, and apartments in desperate need of repair. The contrast between those conditions and Gordillo's family real estate portfolio is not subtle.
The DSA has positioned itself nationally as the political vehicle for tenants, low-wage workers, and communities squeezed by rising housing costs. That positioning has generated friction within the broader Democratic coalition, but it has also given the organization real influence in New York City politics. Gordillo's situation threatens to undermine the credibility of that entire project.
McCall laid out five specific issues he wants the NYC-DSA to address publicly. Each one targets a different facet of the Gordillo story.
First, McCall raised the affordable-housing implications of the Bedford-Stuyvesant property. He alleged that Gordillo and his family converted a two-family home into a single-family residence in a historically Black and brown neighborhood during an acute housing affordability crisis, effectively eliminating a unit of potential housing in a community that can least afford to lose one.
Second, McCall alleged that Gordillo misled local community members about whether he lived at the property, claiming he did not reside there while an LLC purchased it for his use and he may have occupied it without paying rent.
Third, McCall demanded transparency about how the renovation of the Bed-Stuy townhouse is being financed and whether union labor is being used on the project. For a man who branded himself a union champion, that question carries obvious weight.
Fourth, McCall challenged Gordillo's prior claims to be a union electrician, pointing to the IBEW Local 3 statement confirming he was fired and never earned full credentials. McCall alleged Gordillo did not pay required dues or perform the work necessary to maintain his status in the union.
Fifth, McCall pointed to a separate Brooklyn housing dispute. Court filings show Gordillo is being sued in Brooklyn housing court for skipping three $2,500 rent payments on a Crown Heights apartment he leased while the Bedford-Stuyvesant townhouse underwent renovations. A man who leads an organization devoted to housing justice is now a defendant in an eviction proceeding, a fact McCall argued undermines Gordillo's public political image.
If the DSA does not address these concerns, McCall threatened to organize "days of action" alongside clergy and NYCHA members. The internal fractures already visible within the DSA nationally would only deepen if a coalition of Black pastors and public housing tenants began picketing the organization's local leadership.
McCall reserved some of his sharpest language for the housing angle. In his statement, he drew a direct line between the conditions NYCHA tenants endure and the luxury renovation Gordillo's family is undertaking in Bed-Stuy:
"At a time when NYCHA residents are living with mold, leaks, broken elevators, and apartments in desperate need of repair, it is unacceptable for a leader who claims to fight for housing justice to be connected to a luxury renovation that is reducing housing opportunities for Black residents in a historically Black Brooklyn community."
He added, flatly: "That is not housing justice. That is not practicing what you preach."
The property records tell a clear story. Gordillo's parents bought the Bed-Stuy home through Chucuito LLC in 2019 for just under $1 million. The property has since appreciated to roughly $1.5 million. Meanwhile, the family's South Florida holdings, two homes worth a combined $6 million or more, place the Gordillos firmly in the millionaire class. Gordillo's father is described as a construction magnate.
None of this squares easily with leading an organization that tells working-class voters it fights for them against the landlord class. The DSA's entire political brand depends on the idea that its leaders share the material conditions of the people they represent. Gordillo's circumstances suggest otherwise.
The pattern of Democratic and left-wing leaders imploding under the weight of their own contradictions is not new. But Gordillo's case is unusually tidy: a self-described union man who got fired from his union apprenticeship, a housing justice advocate whose family reduced affordable housing stock, and an anti-landlord activist whose parents own millions in real estate across two states.
Neither Gordillo nor the NYC-DSA responded to the Post's request for comment. That silence leaves McCall's five demands, and the underlying factual record, unanswered.
The eviction lawsuit in Brooklyn housing court remains pending. The IBEW Local 3 statement stands uncontested. And the property records connecting Gordillo to a family real estate portfolio worth millions are public documents that no press release can wish away.
The broader left has struggled with this kind of leadership problem before. Socialist candidates have faced rejection from voters who sense a gap between populist rhetoric and personal reality. Gordillo's case may test whether the DSA's own membership is willing to hold its leaders to the standards the organization demands of everyone else.
McCall's open questions deserve answers. Whether Gordillo used union labor on his family's renovation, whether he misrepresented his residency to neighbors, whether he paid rent while living in a property his parents bought through a corporate shell, these are not abstract policy debates. They are specific, verifiable questions about whether a man who lectures New Yorkers about economic justice has been honest about his own finances.
Organizations that preach accountability to everyone but their own leaders do not stay credible for long. The DSA can answer McCall's questions, or it can learn that lesson the hard way.
