​New Yorkers are watching their favorite businesses shutter in the wake of COVID-19. These aren't failing businesses that have been struggling for years. These are beloved institutions that people travel from around the world to visit. The lack of commercial rent control contributes to continually rising rents for businesses that once turned an impressive profit but who are now paying absurd prices to landlords who don't care about our neighborhoods.

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For our cities to do more than survive, but to bounce back entirely, we need to cap rent for long-standing small businesses, charge a vacancy tax for vacant storefronts that sit at above-market price for more than 3 months, and assure fair leases.

Commercial Rent Control

​In NYC, renters make up 70% of the population. However, our housing laws disempower renters, the majority of people in our cities. Working people are tasked with keeping our economy running and landlords wealthy while offered unaffordable "affordable" housing. We need to expand  Mitchell-Lama across the state.

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We need to put the power back into the hands of renters by creating “Good Cause” eviction laws, regulating building buyouts, and eliminating Major Capital Improvement increases. We need to end the chipping away of rent controlled and rent stabilized housing in our district!

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At the same time, massive corporate landlords based outside of the state shouldn't be allowed to make massive profits from New York renters while their wealth builds another state's economy. We need a progressive property tax based on the number of units owned.

Universal Rent Control

So much of the racial and economic injustice that young New Yorkers experience starts in schools. School segregation is real and New York City ranks as number one for school segregation.

Without a generous investment in public schools, kids will be deprived of their basic needs. Kids have rights too!

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​In 2020, we have an added problem. Our underpaid teachers who are already covering their own supplies are now being asked to go back to school in a pandemic. Parents are put in opposition, stressed out as they share the teaching while working from home. How do we expect this to go?

A public health crisis demands a robust plan of action that includes higher wages for teachers, adjusted work demands for parents, resources for the neediest school, and increased "Foundation Aid."

Fully-Funded Public Schools

The NY Health Act has passed the NYS Assembly before, but with the tacit understanding that it would never pass the Senate, which was controlled by Republicans until recently. Now that both houses are Democratic strongholds, the bill has been put on the back burner.

As your Assembly member, I will organize and mobilize Yorkville and Roosevelt Island to help get the word out in districts where other members are less enthusiastic. I will help to organize and evangelize for the act in other districts to ensure all New York residents and workers receive dental, vision, reproductive health, and long-term care.

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The RAND Corporation has found that this program will save our state $11 billion a year. This is money that could be reallocated to SUNY, helping us to support a generation of medical professionals to provide care. We must start by passing the NY Health Act.

Comprehensive Universal Healthcare

Governor Cuomo’s Excelsior scholarship a noble concept, but that falls short. In 2018, the majority of applicants for the scholarship were denied. Secondly, it fails to attack some of the major hurdles of equity in higher education.

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My mother became pregnant with me at 19. While she wasn’t on a path to college in 1983, she might have been able to reconsider after a couple of years if she hadn’t had a child to care for. If she had access to housing and childcare vouchers, she would have gone to school.

How do I know this? Because at 40, after years of low-wage work, she dedicated evenings and weekends to taking courses and earned her Associates Degree, around the same time that I was graduating from college. She finally had the time and money to dedicate to earn a degree in social work.

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Her story should be an exception. Every student must have assistance with tuition and the costs of everyday life.

Housing and Childcare for all CUNY and SUNY Students

We should ​be working to improve voter turnout by making elections more accessible and by expanding municipal (citywide) voting to all Permanent Residents.

Everyone who sends their kids to city schools and who is paying city taxes should have a voice in how their city is run.

NYC's 2018 "State of Our Immigrant City" reports nearly 1 million Green Card holders who cannot vote in their municipal elections but should be able to. There are thousands of residents of Roosevelt Island and Yorkville who wish they could be more civically engaged but are prohibited.

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There is a bill in the NYC City Council to extend these rights to residents, but it may face push-back in Albany. I will organize to clear a path to allow all residents to vote for their mayor and city representatives.

Voting for All New Yorkers

We are living in constant threat of a climate crisis. It’s hard for many of us to imagine how we’ll survive if predictions for the future of our planet hold true. The majority of Americans have supported moving toward renewable energy for years now. 

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With the proposal of a fracked gas pipeline going through densely populated Brooklyn and the real threat of another epic weather event worse than Hurricane Sandy, we need action now. With publicly-owned utilities, we can expect the public sentiment to outweigh private profit.

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On Long Island, residents are clamoring to replace private water companies with public ones. With so much classroom instruction now moving online, we need every New Yorker to have high-speed broadband in their home. The economic impacts of COVID can't leave New Yorkers at the whims of private utility companies.

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Water, electricity, gas, and the internet are basic needs in modern life. Municipalizing our utilities will offer the accountability and access that New Yorkers need to thrive.

Publicly-Owned Utilities

COVID-19 brought  few bright spots, but one was the fact that bus service became fare-free. Since everyone from Roosevelt Islanders to essential workers to low-income neighbors rely on public transit to get around, our elected leaders made a smart decision to cancel fares on buses.

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We always had the ability to do this. We just needed the political will. 

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Just 38% of the MTA budget comes from fares, yet they encourage the policing of fare collection as if it was 138% of their revenue. We know that the MTA needs more funding to update its signal systems and keep tunnels safe. 

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With money generated from a meager .05% financial transaction tax, we can provide New York residents with free access to our trains and buses. More than ever, we need to keep New Yorkers mobile while ​keeping the city affordable for all. We also need a plan for 100% accessible stations.

Fully-Funded, Fare-Free MTA

With New Yorkers facing a near 20% unemployment rate due to COVID, there’s a need to create new jobs. The New York State renewable energy sector has created more than 150,000 jobs in recent years.

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We need more jobs. We also need to be transitioning to 100% renewable energy. By investing in a workforce, we can aid  our unemployment issues and begin to set the standard for what it means to have a “Green New Deal” in New York State.

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A Green New Deal also provides a plan to construct energy-efficient buildings and build sustainable and safe public housing.

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While Governor Cuomo signed a Green New Deal for New Yorkers in 2019, we still haven’t created the kind of jobs program that could be possible. I will aggressively pursue this for the present and the future of our state.

A "Jobs Guarantee" via the Green New Deal

LGBTQ New Yorkers have been battling discrimination and abuse for decades while  elected officials nibble at the edges of change. The Human Rights Campaign has been pushing our state to repeal the so-called Walking While Trans Ban.

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As recently as 2018, 91% of the people arrested for violating the statute were people of color and 80% are women. As 60% of transgender New Yorkers claim harassment and abuse from police, we must repeal the legal cover.

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Similarly, transgender New Yorkers are harassed with the assumption that they’re sex workers. For some LGBTQ New Yorkers, the workplace harassment and discrimination makes sex work the most viable way to make money. If artists, musicians, construction workers, and athletes can use their bodies to provide for their families, sex work is criminalized and stigmatized because it makes us uncomfortable to talk about. Our discomfort makes the world unsafe for sex workers.

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Sex work will not be abolished with laws. It will only be made more safe or less safe. We need sex work decriminalization and rights for all workers, including sex workers. Assistance for those in need must be rooted in harm reduction.

Repeal the “Walking While Trans” Ban and Decriminalize Sex Work