Harlem is
NOT for Sale
CORE PROBLEM:
Harlem is being squeezed. Renters face harassment. Homeowners face predatory deed theft scams. Small businesses are priced out by commercial landlords. Political choices have favored the wealthy and failed our neighborhood time and time again. That ends now.
HOW WE GOVERN:
We know that one Assembly seat cannot resolve every challenge Harlem faces. But here is what one Assembly seat can do: use legislative authority, budget leverage, and a mobilized community to intentionally change the conditions that keep Harlem losing ground.
To the renters, homeowners, and workers of Harlem, I want to make this promise: I will stand up for our community. As your Assemblymember, I will not just occupy a seat; I will use it to draft legislation, shape budget priorities, challenge harmful deals, and build strong majorities—inside and outside government—that prioritize our survival over outside speculation.
Harlem is not a real estate asset or a tourist trap. It is our home, built over generations by residents, workers, and small businesses. We are trapped in a geographic crisis: paying Manhattan rents on outer-borough wages. While our residents earn 36% less than the city average, the immense wealth Harlem generates is stolen by outside speculators rather than used to uplift the people who live here.
I am committed to ending political choices that treat this injustice as inevitable. Some of this work can and will be done immediately through legislation and budget decisions. Other changes will require building statewide coalitions, organizing our community, and sustained pressure. Harlem, I want to be honest—any change takes all of us. But together we are prepared for it.
The mission is simple and firm:
Harlem stays,
Harlem builds,
Harlem governs.
HOW THE PIECES FIT TOGETHER:
People in Harlem know their community’s problems are connected. When housing is unstable and too expensive, our families get pushed out. When wages are too low, our rent becomes unmanageable. When public safety systems fail, our daily lives get harder. Our campaign starts from that reality. Keeping us in our homes, making sure the money we earn here stays here, and building public safety systems that actually serve our collective interests are not separate goals. These puzzle pieces rise or fall together.
The political choice to isolate housing from wages and safety has left Harlem vulnerable to the highest bidder. We are ending the era of piecemeal promises and influence peddling; we will treat the survival of our community as a single, indivisible project to ensure Harlem stays, builds, and governs.
Housing is where stability begins. Too many Harlem families are pushed out by rising rents and speculative development. Landlords and developers increasingly treat our homes as a financial asset rather than the place where we live. This displacement is the result of political choices. Different choices can be made. Protecting residents does not require freezing neighborhoods or limiting housing supply. It requires removing housing from speculation altogether. New housing has been built in our community for years while displacement has accelerated. The problem is not growth but who controls that growth and who benefits from it. It’s time to take that control back for us: the People of Harlem.
1
HOLD OUR
GROUND
ESTABLISH THE HARLEM GREEN SOCIAL HOUSING DISTRICT
We will work to establish a Social Housing Development Authority (SHDA) with the authority to issue its own debt and bypass municipal “Home Rule” bottlenecks that historically stall local progress. This district will develop green, mixed income housing managed by residents and constructed with guaranteed union labor. This approach treats housing as a permanent public good, providing high quality homes that are insulated from market forces.
ACQUIRE WHOLE BLOCKS WITH DAY ONE RESIDENT TRANSFER
To scale our impact, we will use a Community Acquisition Fund to purchase and preserve clusters of housing simultaneously. To prevent the state from becoming a distant, bureaucratic landlord, all acquired properties will include a legal requirement for Day One Transfer to local Community Land Trusts (CLTs) or limited equity cooperatives.
ENACT THE TENANT OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE ACT (TOPA)
We will pass TOPA to give residents the legal right to outbid speculators who want to profit off of us. This will be supported by public capital pooling to ensure tenant associations have the immediate liquidity needed to win and build equity together on the block they call home.
INSTITUTIONALIZE RESIDENT GOVERNANCE
Social and green housing must be governed by those with a direct stake in the outcome. We will establish boards of everyday residents selected through a lottery to hold real, decision-making authority over their building’s management and maintenance. This restores the community control fights of the 1960s, linking our dignity to actual governance.
DEPLOY A ROBUST CONSTITUENT TEAM
Our Office will be a hub for organizing and professional constituent services. We won’t wait for problems to reach a crisis; our team will be in the community daily, asking neighbors how we can best serve them, helping them navigate government bureaucracy, and forcing city agencies to deliver the services Harlem is owed.
BUILD OUR
WEALTH
Keeping our community in Harlem only works if we can afford to live here. The 36% income gap in Harlem is a political choice. What is more, this year, fortune 500 companies took home record profits, while workers took home record low wages. We power this city with our labor, yet we earn significantly less than the rest of New York. While our work builds the city’s wealth, we are denied the prosperity we create. Our campaign knows Harlem is a collective economic engine and insists we who power Harlem share in what we produce. Wages do not rise because politicians announce a number. They rise because standards, procurement rules, and bargaining power change. We are committed to working to bring these changes, together.
2
PASS THE NYC SMALL BUSINESS SURVIVAL ACT:
We will work to pass commercial rent stabilization to cap rent increases for local shops and restaurants. By stabilizing these rents, we ensure Harlem’s corridors are anchors of community wealth rather than targets for predatory rent hikes.
MANDATE A $30 WAGE BY 2030
Us working people deserve a wage that allows us to meet all our needs and raise a family without the exhaustion of juggling multiple jobs.
FULLY FUND A TUITION-FREE NEW DEAL FOR CUNY
City College of New York, a premiere public university, is at the center of our district. Yet so many Harlemites are not able to access an education there. We will ensure Harlemites can access the professional training needed to lead the industries of the future. Public college must return to being a guaranteed engine of social mobility, not a debt trap. We will return CUNY to its tuition-free start, making public college truly public once again.
TAX WEALTHY UNIVERSITIES
Columbia University is rooted in Harlem because of public investment, infrastructure, and subsidies. Asking the university to contribute to the neighborhood it relies on is basic accountability.
PROTECT OUR
PEOPLE
Public safety determines whether stability lasts. We know what it feels like when government safety systems show up too late or make a crisis worse. Real safety is an institutional responsibility that requires the right response at the right time. While some situations will always require enforcement, the current system’s failure is enforcement as the first response rather than the last.
We want fewer emergencies that spiral and faster responses when help is needed. We are building a neighborhood where safety feels real and consistent because it is on our terms.
3
LEAD WITH PROFESSIONALS FOR MENTAL HEALTH CRISES
When a neighbor experiences a mental health crisis, we will ensure that trained professionals respond first. We will work to pass Daniel’s Law to provide faster help and fewer traumatic encounters.
STREET-LEVEL INVESTMENTS TO ENSURE NO BLOCK IS FORGOTTEN
Safety will be bolstered through non-police investments in street lighting, sanitation, and transit infrastructure. This addresses quality-of-life grievances while restoring order to public spaces without increasing incarceration rates.
END ICE COLLABORATION
Local resources must never be used to tear families apart. We will pass New York for All to ensure residents can seek help and report crimes without fear of deportation. We will also guarantee that every neighbor facing the deportation machine has access to a lawyer so they have a real chance to stay home.
GUARANTEE DIGNITY FOR ALL NEIGHBORS
Every Harlem resident deserves respect in our public institutions. We will mandate that trans and queer neighbors have access to affirming healthcare and are treated with dignity in every city system. Safety is not real unless it is consistent and follows the respect our community has earned.
PROTECT THE RIGHT TO CARE
Washington tries to control what we can and cannot do with our bodies. We will protect our neighbors' rights to choose what they do with them. It is the government’s duty to provide abortion, gender affirming care, and sexual health treatment, along with all other forms of healthcare, for free, to the People. We will fight to ensure every Harlemite is able to access the care they need, without worrying about cost.