If you walk one avenue block from Julia Salazar’s Bushwick campaign headquarters and hang a right onto Troutman Street, you’ll find yourself in the shadow of a 125-unit complex called “CastleBraid,” a luxury condo building for artists—or, as Gothamist once put it, an “opulently priced hipster Wonderland” made especially for the “parentally subsidized hipster.” In March 2012 , CastleBraid's management reassured tenants: "CastleBraid is absolutely not required to set aside 20% for low income housing."

Essential to Salazar’s vision for how the community could transform under her leadership is democratic socialism, a political ideology that forms the basis of campaign platforms like housing, criminal justice reform, free tuition at city and state colleges, and single-payer health care.

Dilan's office disputes this characterization of the state senator's record, telling Broadly Dilan will "continue to seek greater rent-stabilization enforcement, and accountability of public funding so that it does produce affordable units," adding that he's supported the "redevelopment" of thousands of lots in the district. It's worth noting Dilan has voted in the past for vacancy decontrol, which some argue encourages landlords to harass tenants so they leave, giving them free rein to hike up the rent. (Dilan has said he regrets his vote on the issue.)

Salazar, a 27-year-old first-time Latina candidate, has made housing the centerpiece of her bid to defeat Martin Dilan, the longtime incumbent currently holding the 18th district seat. If Dilan wins a ninth term, Salazar says it means rents will continue to rise at unsustainable rates and more people will be displaced from their homes. A Salazar victory, her campaign pitch goes, means an advocate in Albany fighting to expand rent stabilization, secure state funds for affordable housing, and stave off gentrification in the parts of Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Cypress Hills she would represent.

“It kind of looks like a dorm,” Salazar says, staring up at the yellow building, its name displayed in letters several feet tall. Then something else catches her eye—her face. A tenant has taped up her campaign poster for the New York State Senate’s 18th District race in their first-floor window.

“The idea of housing being a human right isn’t really compatible with capitalism,” she says.

Around 4 PM on a Wednesday afternoon, Salazar sits in her Bushwick offices, a shuttered coffee shop that the owner rented out to her for a “good rate” when he learned what she would use it for. She hasn’t eaten lunch yet—something wrapped in foil sits between us while we talk. In the next room, a few campaign volunteers sit at folding tables, quietly typing on laptops with “Abolish ICE” stickers on the front. On a far wall, there are two massive maps of the 18th District; opposite them, a sign reading, “New York needs a living wage.”

“With capitalism, you cede control to market forces, which won’t grant a poor person the right to stay in their homes, or to see a doctor,” she says. “That’s all in the hands of the person who has more capital.”