A Just and Accountable Recovery, by Rodrigo Camarena

Superstorm Sandy led to the displacement of thousands, costly damage to our already deteriorating NYC public housing infrastructure, and the closure of thousands of small businesses. Its legacy: $19 billion dollars worth of damage and frontline communities forever changed by our growing climate crisis.

Much like in the current crisis, Sandy’s impact was met with rapid-response relief efforts, financial assistance from the City, State, and Federal government, and a commitment from our leaders to build back better. Flash forward to nearly 9 years after Sandy and hundreds of small businesses have once again shuttered their doors, thousands have been displaced, and the NYCHA houses are arguably in even greater disrepair.

In our post-COVID recovery journey we need to learn from the mistakes of our past and work to ensure that Red Hook, Sunset Park, and South Brooklyn residents are never this vulnerable again. As a candidate for City Council, running to represent Red Hook, Sunset Park, and South Brooklyn’s 38th Council District, I’m committed to doing just that.

Our plan, A Recovery for All of Us, seeks to address the disproportionate impact that this economic crisis has wrought on people of color, immigrants, and working families and while addressing long standing structural failures in our City. From launching a Citywide Portable Benefits Program so that worker healthcare and benefits aren’t tied to employment, to creating a Public Bank to use NYC’s billions of dollars on deposit to invest in NYCHA, affordable housing, and democratically-controlled clean energy and public infrastructure; our plan calls for decisive local public action, to stop the deepening of existing poverty and inequality in our district.

I have made economic justice not just a priority of our campaign, but my life’s mission. As an economist and former Executive Director at the New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS), I led citywide initiatives to help small businesses recover after Superstorm Sandy and expand opportunities for immigrant entrepreneurs, worker-owned businesses, and minority and women-owned enterprises (M/WBEs). As an organizer I’ve taken on landlords and developers intent on displacing working families and transforming our community into a playground for the rich.

In our path towards a just recovery post-COVID we need to not only channel resources and attention to the right places, we also need tested and experienced leaders who will be unafraid to take on the powerful interests in our city. In New York, these powerful interests include large private real-estate developers who see our current crisis as an opportunity to grow their foothold in our city and buy property on the cheap to build luxury housing, corporate offices, and last-mile distribution centers to accelerate the Amazonification of New York City. These powerful interests also include government agencies like the NYC Department of City Planning (DCP), City Planning Commission (CPC), the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), all public and quasi-public agencies who have mismanaged millions in the past and who remain unaccountable to the communities that they are tasked with supporting.

In the case of NYCHA, the failures do not only stem from our chronic disinvestment in public housing, but also from our leaders’ inability to hold the New York City Housing Authority accountable by doing increasing community oversight over NYCHA’s decisions (especially as they pertain to the ongoing resiliency work and potential Federal infrastructure funding) and allowing the NYC Housing and Preservation Department to investigate the over 1,000 code violations cited by HPD at the Red Hook Houses and chronicled by the Red Hook Community Justice Center.

For quasi-public agencies, liket the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), our work includes ensuring transparency and accountability around procurement, job placement, development planning, and other recovery efforts. From failing to deliver on Red Hook resiliency projects and promises to Red Hook nonprofits like PortSide NewYork, to it its deliberate conversion of public assets into for-profit use (e.g. Liberty View Industrial Plaza), the NYCEDC has a lengthy history of failing New York’s working-class communities. The NYCEDC manages 3.5 million square feet of industrial space. It’s time to reclaim these public assets and transform them into democratically-managed tools for an inclusive and community-led economic development agenda that prioritizes vulnerable New Yorkers, communities of color, immigrants, and women.

Our campaign is committed to enacting the sweeping structural change that this moment demands.
Together we can leverage public resources towards the construction of 100% affordable and social housing, repairing NYCHA, building new hospitals, parks and schools, parks, and investing in green jobs and improved transportation infrastructure. As billions in State and Federal recovery resources make their way to New York City, we need to not only ensure that this funding is supporting those that are most vulnerable and in urgent need, but that the institutions tasked with planning, managing, and executing our recovery are accountable and transparent to all New Yorkers.

Throughout this crisis, we have seen Brooklynites exhibit great humanity, generosity and solidarity. These are the values that have gotten us through other difficult times and are the same values that our campaign has enshrined into policies that will steer Red Hook, Sunset Park, and South Brooklyn towards a just and accountable recovery. A recovery for all of us.

Rodrigo Camarena is an immigrant advocate, organizer, and candidate for New York City Council’s 38th District which includes the communities of Sunset Park and Red Hook, and portions of Borough Park, Dyker Heights, and Windsor Terrace. Learn more about Rodrigo at www.Rodrigo4nyc.com