Issues

Rent in Astoria is out of control: 24 percent of our neighbors spend half their income on rent. Why? Investors are buying up our community, and the only new housing that gets built are luxury buildings for the rich. We need to take back control of our housing market so that it works for everyone, not just big landlords and developers.

In Albany, we will fight to:

• Enact universal, statewide rent control
• Tax the rich to fix NYCHA and build more high-quality social housing
• Buy unaffordable units off the private market and put them under community control

We don’t let private companies own roads and bridges, and they shouldn’t own essential services like heat and electricity either. Right now, our utility companies are allowed to jack up rates so they can pay their executives and shareholders a lot more money. We need to take over these companies and start running them for the benefit of our community, not just corporate CEOs.

• Turn ConEd and National Grid into state agencies
• Mandate lower energy prices
• Transition to carbon-free alternatives while protecting jobs

Our jails and prisons are inhumane. They don’t solve the problems people had going in, they make them worse – or create ones that weren’t there to begin with. When we lock people up for years at a time, we make it impossible for them to support themselves and their families. All of this makes us less safe, not more. Safety comes from investment in housing, jobs, education, and social services, and the stable communities those create.

• End cash bail so that poor and working-class people aren’t locked up without trial
• Decriminalize sex work and substance use
• Ban ICE from our courthouses

It is impossible to look at the inequities women face on the basis of gender without also looking at what it’s like to be a working-class woman, an immigrant woman, a woman working three jobs to feed her family, or a woman working in the sex trades with little state protection.

New York is the most diverse American city, but our public schools are the most segregated in the country. Black and Hispanic kids are almost totally locked out of the city’s best schools, and we invest little in public education that serves communities of color. We need to desegregate and revitalize our schools so they can lift up all New Yorkers with the skills and opportunities needed to thrive.

• Make achievement, not test scores, the basis for admission to specialized high schools
• Fight for the $4 billion our schools are owed that the Governor refuses to pay
• End subsidies for charter schools and invest more in public education

New York couldn’t exist without public transit, and we need to start giving this crucial resource the investment it deserves. Millions of us use it everyday to get to the jobs that pay the rent and put food on the table. Those jobs also make money for business and generate taxes to fund vital services. Investing in public transit also lets the people who keep the city running - like teachers and nurses - get to work

• Tax Wall Street to eliminate fares and make subways and buses free
• Ban traffic from major roads to improve bus, bike, and pedestrian transit
• Stop wasting money on more cops in the subway and invest in repairs instead

New York City is a union town, but our leaders don’t treat workers with the respect they deserve. Instead of fighting for higher wages, stronger benefits, and safer job sites, they have let let big business run roughshod over the workers who built this state and make it run. We need representatives who will stand up to management and protect and extend labor rights for all workers.

• Require prevailing wages and union labor on any project that receives state aid.
• Extend labor rights to every worker, including gig workers, regardless of immigration status or industry.
• Discipline employers for wage theft, unsafe workplaces, and firing workers without just cause.

We can’t reform our way out of a racist police system that’s working exactly as designed - as a means of control over black & brown New Yorkers. We need to dramatically curtail the power and presence of the NYPD. That means cutting $3 billion from the NYPD budget and reinvesting those savings in health, housing, and community services. This is a first step on the road to a safer and more humane New York.

• Institute an Immediate hiring freeze and cancelation of all new officer classes, and a reduction in the force’s headcount by 1,300 officers through attrition.
• Immediately cancel all officer overtime.
• Institute a moratorium on all new equipment purchases.

Healthcare is a fundamental right, just like education. We don’t send families a bill when they enroll their child in public school; we invest in public schools collectively so that everyone can receive an equal education. We need to do the same for healthcare by eliminating for-profit insurance companies that make money off our illness and pain.

• Fight for the New York Health Act and a single-payer healthcare system
• Eliminate outstanding medical debt
• Provide high-quality care, regardless of immigration status

New York wouldn’t be New York without our immigrant neighbors, and those who came before us and built this city. We claim to be a sanctuary state, but the truth is that New York still cooperates with Trump’s deportation machine, and fails to protect its immigrant residents from harassment by ICE and the police. We need to make it clear that

• Ban ICE from all New York courthouses and hospitals
• Offer free healthcare to low-income New Yorkers regardless of immigration status
• Increase funding for immigrant legal services

Everyone should be able to enjoy health and safety - in their homes, at work, and out in public. But queer and trans people are too often denied those rights. Many are unable to access appropriate medical care, stable housing, and dignified work. Many are also vulnerable to harassment and violence by the police. We need to remove the barriers queer people face to accessing the rights to which we’re all entitled.

• Guarantee queer- and trans-inclusive medical care to all - including mental healthcare, transition-related care, and HIV-related and sexual healthcare - through a single-payer system.
• Provide supportive housing options for homeless queer youth and housing insecure queer New Yorkers, with access to health, education, and employment services.
• Standardize and strengthen anti-discrimination protections on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression in all areas of anti-discrimination law in New York state.
• End police harassment of queer people by decriminalizing sex work, defunding the NYPD, divesting from jails and prisons, and reinvesting those savings in appropriate social services.

Lack of proper accommodations can make it impossible for people with disabilities to navigate New York, on the streets, in the subways, at their workplaces, and in their homes. We need to improve our knowledge about the types of challenges New Yorkers with disabilities are facing, implement physical accommodations to make our city more accessible, and crack down on employers who discriminate on the basis of disability.

• Have state agencies keep accurate statistics of types of disability, including hearing, vision & mobility.
• Require employers to codify their good faith interactive process and identify specific accommodations they will offer to employees who request them.
• Prohibit mandatory arbitration for claims of employment discrimiantion on the basis of disability.