Our Platform

For too long, complacent lawmakers backed by wealthy special interests have blocked progress—all as costs rise, quality of life declines, and existential threats go unaddressed. 

Here’s the agenda I’ll pursue in Albany and in our communities, not just demanding change but delivering results.

Lower Costs

Let’s lower the price of housing, energy, childcare, and healthcare so New Yorkers are free to live where we want—without being rent-burdened, displaced, or pushed out of the city altogether, and without being forced into impossible choices about care for our families.

  • Average rents in Manhattan are over $5,700, and they’re rising seven times faster than wages. Over half of New York households are rent-burdened—if they’re not pushed out altogether. Insurance costs are surging far faster than inflation, and climate goals require cutting down on building emissions. Whether you rent or own, it’s a struggle to afford to stay.

    • Lower rents for everyone by building more homes of all types. Support public housing and create community-owned social housing. Demand maximum affordability and enforce binding community benefits agreements when legalizing more housing.

    • Keep tenants in their homes as we bring down rents. Strengthen tenant protections and right to counsel for people in housing court. End needless reauthorizations for programs like SCRIE and DRIE.

    • Lower the costs of home ownership and preservation. Crack down on insurance companies, reform property taxes, and subsidize co-op greening to help owners. Increase the solvency of rent-stabilized buildings without raising rents on their tenants.

  • More than a million New York households are two or more months behind on utility payments as electricity costs skyrocket. Utilities are jacking up prices as energy demand increases. We can lower costs for New York families while protecting the climate—if we act boldly.

    • Stop backsliding on climate commitments. Undo rollbacks to emission reductions targets. Block fossil fuel projects. Implement cap-and-invest ASAP.

    • Tackle corporate greed of utilities, regulating them to prevent onerous rate hikes.

    • Build green energy to lower prices. Deploy large-scale and rooftop solar, and onshore and offshore wind, quickly and at scale. Electrify the grid and site more battery storage. 

    • Stop abuse of the grid by big tech’s data centers and by cryptomining, which drive up energy demand for private gain. 

  • Families with young kids are twice as likely as their counterparts to leave New York. Childcare is a major reason why, with annual costs up to $25,000 per kid. Today, families are fleeing to red states with fewer freedoms but lower cost of living. Our kids are New York’s future. We're losing them—and handing our political power over to the MAGA right. 

    • Create universal, affordable childcare for all kids 6 weeks and older. Universal childcare will lower costs for families and grow the economy—in labor force participation from parents who want to work, and in tax revenue from families who stay in the state.

  • Statewide, 80% of New Yorkers worry about affording healthcare. Locally, we’re losing our hospitals. St. Vincent’s, where I was born, shuttered its emergency rooms on April 9, 2010; on April 9, 2025, Beth Israel closed its doors. In the richest city in the richest country on earth, it doesn’t have to be this way.

    • Pass the New York Health Act, creating a single-payer system for all New Yorkers. Quality healthcare untethered from jobs means freedom. As a New Yorker who gets multiple regular treatments for chronic health conditions (which would be impossible to afford without insurance), I know how life choices are constrained by access.

    • Lower medical costs by demanding transparency from providers, reducing waste and workforce constraints, and preventing corporate consolidation.

    • Protect critical care from MAGA attempts to ban and defund them.

  • New York's mental health crisis demands real investment in care. Too many New Yorkers are denied care by insurance companies, priced out of treatment, or left without providers at all.

    • Close insurance loopholes that deny care. Ban "step therapy" rules that force patients to try inferior drugs before getting what their doctor prescribed. End prior authorization requirements that delay or deny mental health medications. And enforce parity laws that require insurance companies give New Yorkers the same quality of mental health coverage as the rest of their plan.

    • Restore and expand mental health funding: mobile treatment teams, Mental Health Clubhouses, Trauma Recovery Centers, Justice-Involved Supportive Housing, and the 988 crisis lifeline are all proven programs that are underfunded or at risk. Albany must step up to close the gap.

    • Expand the mental health workforce through better pay, faster hiring, and a CUNY and SUNY graduate student tuition forgiveness program.

  • Lowering costs is about increasing the purchasing power of working people—a goal served above all by creating and protecting secure, well-paying union jobs. 

    • Protect collective bargaining rights, rejecting any attempt to weaken labor unions’ organizing and speech rights

    • Enforce Project Labor Agreements to ensure our neighborhoods are built by union workers earning good wages, receiving high-quality benefits, and adhering to strong safety standards.

    • Foster apprenticeships, green jobs programs, and other efforts to build the next generation of good union jobs across new and existing sectors.

  • In New York, the top 1% of earners make over 44 times the income of the other 99%. Reducing this inequality will fund key programs and reduce a massive power imbalance that’s bad for our wallets—and our democracy.

    • Increase taxes on the ultra-wealthy by implementing a tiered, progressive tax hike on annual incomes above $5M to ensure all are paying their fair share.

    • Crack down on the “Buy, Borrow, Die” strategy that allows the ultra-rich to avoid paying taxes on their wealth. Impose a tax on loans secured by appreciated assets.

    • Fix the broken property tax system that charges renters, co-ops, and condos more than single-family homeowners. Support the proposed “circuit breaker” tax credit to provide relief for middle-class homeowners.

Safer Streets

Our neighborhoods are some of the best in the city, but our streets and subways don’t always feel safe or welcoming. Everyone should be able to get around safely and joyfully—protected from crime, traffic violence, and climate change, with reliable public transit and clean, well-managed public spaces.

  • Local 311 reports confirm what we know: encampments are the number one cause of neighborhood concern. We must actually end street homelessness, breaking cycles of distress and disorder that unsettle our neighborhoods and harm our neighbors who are already vulnerable.

    • End the scarcity of psychiatric beds, supportive housing, Safe Haven shelters, and stabilization beds that actually get homeless New Yorkers off of streets and out of subways. Sweeps of encampments are not a solution: they merely punish and temporarily relocate homeless New Yorkers.

    • Build stronger pathways to housing and healthcare for street homeless New Yorkers with coordinated case management, ending the revolving door between the streets, shelters, hospitals, and Rikers. When needed, require help for those who are unable to choose it for themselves.

    • Pass Daniel's Law to send mental health professionals instead of officers to people experiencing psychiatric, alcohol, or substance use crises, building a community-based, evidence-driven response rooted in peer support and consent.

  • Cleaner streets are safer streets, as blight invites crime and illegal activity occurs in the shadows of scaffolding. The West 4th St. subway and northwest corner of Washington Square have long been hotbeds for drug use and sales. We must clean up our neighborhoods to make them more vibrant and safer for everyone.

    • Bring down the unsightly scaffolding that persistently pockmarks our historic streets.

    • Add street lights that are proven to reduce crime and clean up subway stations to raise standards of behavior.

    • Containerize all trash and recycling to end the rat buffets and ugly garbage bag piles.

  • More New Yorkers are killed every year by cars than by guns, but we don’t treat reckless driving as the public safety emergency it is. Cars are getting larger and deadlier, and a small subset of drivers are operating them dangerously. E-bikes—particularly those used by deliveristas facing unreasonable demands from app companies—are causing unease on the sidewalk. 

    • Mandate speed limiters when a driver has a record of recklessness, removing repeat offenders from the street altogether.

    • Design better streets to keep kids, elders, and disabled New Yorkers safe. Deploy hardened daylighting, already mandated outside NYC, and other traffic calming and low-traffic measures.

    • Protect pedestrians from e-bikes by banning certain motorized vehicles and cracking down on app companies that incentivize lawbreaking while punishing offenders.

    • Drastically expand protected bike lanes to give riders a safe place to be.

  • Our buses are the slowest in the country, and they’re relied on by the poorest New Yorkers. Subways are decrepit and service is insufficient. 

    • Fast and free buses are achievable. Dedicated busways and automated enforcement will remove blockages. Dedicating funding for the $700 million now covered by fares will further speed buses while increasing equity for low-income riders.

    • Revitalized subways are possible with MTA capital investment, modernization of the signal system, accessibility upgrades, right-sizing of stations, and more—straightforward fixes that have lacked the political will to demand them.

  • Temperatures, water levels, and rainfall are all rising. Basement apartments, sewers, and subways are flooding. Coastal storm surges tear apart communities. “Once-in-a-century” emergencies are now routine. Preserving the character of Village, Soho, and Tribeca means grappling with climate change.

    • Defend the neighborhood with coastal protections to abate storm surges, and upgrade our subway and sewer infrastructure. 

    • Innovate our resiliency with porous cement and bioswales that absorb heat and water.

    • Drastically increase tree cover and green space to reduce heat island effects while creating more vibrant neighborhoods.

Stronger Democracy

New York must remain a bulwark against authoritarianism—protecting voting rights, expanding access to the ballot, and organizing to win elections that defend the freedoms of women, immigrants, LGBTQ+ and disabled New Yorkers, and all marginalized communities.

  • The Trump administration is sending masked agents into the streets of American cities and attempting to strip rights from other disfavored groups. They are weaponizing prosecutions, federal funding, and approvals of programs from congestion pricing to offshore wind. We cannot allow our families to be ripped apart, our sovereignty to be disrespected, or our children to grow up with fewer rights than their grandparents.

    • Pass New York for All to ban collaboration with federal immigration enforcement. Stop ICE incarceration in state facilities. Require agents to show their faces. Ensure legal representation in immigration courts. Allow New Yorkers to sue ICE agents who violate their rights.

    • Fight MAGA power grabs. Prepare tit-for-tat withholding of funds if the federal government illegally retains money owed to New York. Undertake aggressive retaliatory redistricting to prevent the GOP entrenching control of the House of Representatives.

    • Provide critical healthcare. Guarantee gender affirming care for TGNC youth and adults. Expand access to reproductive care, including lowering the barriers to birth control prescription and payment. Offer vaccines on data-backed schedules.

    • Eradicate hate. Attackantisemitism with the fervency required by a rise in hate crimes targeting New York Jews. Counter pernicious Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian animus. Continue to foreground and fight anti-AAPI hate and attacks on LGBTQ+ New Yorkers.

    • Make New York affordable enough for those who are unsafe. Declaring that we are a haven for abortion seekers, queer Americans, and immigrants is insufficient if it’s too expensive to be here.

  • It is not enough to push back against the Trump administration. We must also be a model for what democracy should look like—today and in a post-Trump future. Dismal voter turnout and impoverished election administration undermine our own democracy. 

    • Drive turnout by legalizing same-day registration. 

    • Implement Automatic Voter Registration, fixing tech and personnel delays. 

    • End cronyism at the Board of Elections.

  • Progressives believe in the power of government, but too often we don’t pay attention to how well the government is working to deliver results. Passing bills and writing checks doesn’t always translate into real benefits for real New Yorkers.

    • Laser focus on delivery, centrally tracking how quickly and effectively benefits—from housing vouchers to food stamps—are delivered to New Yorkers.

    • Reform civil service to allow agencies to hire quickly and effectively.

  • The pace of technological change is accelerating, and too many policymakers are unprepared to harness and regulate algorithms or AI.

    • Ban personalized pricing that uses algorithms to take advantage of consumers.

    • Block algorithmic discrimination, requiring annual independent audits for tools that intervene in employment, housing, education, health care, and financial services decision-making.

    • Regulate AI companies to stop deepfakes and disinformation, protect privacy, ensure safety, and make companies responsible for power generation needed for data centers.

    • Empower workers amid job market disruption, creating a dividend to share AI profits with citizens and supporting New Yorkers whose jobs are displaced.

    • Protect patient data, expanding on HIPAA with the New York Health Information Privacy Act

  • Even before Trump took office for a second time, New York was far from living up to the values of equal justice for all. Our carceral system is unequal and inhumane—from deaths at Rikers to fatal beatings of prisoners upstate—a moral stain and bad for achieving public safety.

    • Safely reduce the incarcerated population, reconnecting New Yorkers who have already paid their debt to society back to their communities.

    • Strategically approach prison consolidation to create safer conditions for prisoners and corrections officers.

    • Invest in data-backed programs that prevent crime before it happens, for example making the Summer Youth Employment Program universal rather than lotteried.

Better Neighborhoods

We’re at the center of New York’s political, architectural, and artistic heritage—but that character is under pressure. Let’s protect what makes us special by supporting small businesses, preserving our historic character, and ensuring Lower Manhattan remains a home for neighbors and artists, not just a playground for billionaires.

  • Every student in District 66 deserves high-quality public education, from pre-K through college. That means great schools that are fully resourced inside and outside the classroom.

    • Fund the Class Size Reduction Act, ensuring that middle schools have the physical space and staffing to meet the new students per class legal limits.

    • Reduce the number of students per counselor to meet the national standard counselor-to-student ratio. Ensure effective academic, career, and social and emotional support. Expand mental health treatment in schools.

    • Expand funding for CUNY and SUNY, demanding that large private universities contribute more to CUNY and SUNY to offset their tax-exempt status.

  • Too many local small businesses have been replaced with big box stores, bank branches, and corporate pharmacies. Our neighborhood bodegas, bookstores, and bistros make the big city feel like a series of small towns. We must protect them.

    • Reduce red tape on small businesses that make it hard for them to compete with corporate behemoths. Permit, regulation, and tax costs often outweigh even rising rents. 

    • Crack down on extortionate insurance policies that small businesses must carry to cover quality of life issues.

    • Rationalize year-round outdoor dining, without unsightly or unsafe sheds and without the onerous seasonal rules that prevent uptake, to support restaurants.

  • The movement for queer liberation started with the Julius’ Sip-In in 1966 and continued with the Stonewall Riots in 1969. We are at risk of losing the queer culture that made the Village a mecca for LGBTQ+ people from all over the city, the country, and the world. In addition to supporting queer bars and businesses, we must attend to the needs of queer New Yorkers. We are being targeted by the Trump administration and by local MAGA parent activists. 

    • Ensure trans youth can live and learn in accordance with their gender identities. 

    • Increase investment in research and outreach as HIV rates increases in New York

    • Expand housing and care for LGBTQ+ young people who are disproportionately likely to be homeless, and for queer elders aging in place.

  • Lower Manhattan must be welcoming to everyone, including our disabled neighbors, and these communities must accommodate our elders who want to age in place with dignity.

    • End needless annual reauthorization of SCRIE and DRIE, vital programs to keep senior and disabled New Yorkers housed which are too hard to access.

    • Offer accessibility bonuses for new housing, modeled on density bonuses for affordable housing, so that new homes are accessible to disabled residents.

    • Help seniors age in place, expanding the state’s home modification programs to help seniors install ramps, grab bars, and smart-home safety tech—keeping them in their homes instead of nursing homes.

  • Our museums, galleries, and theaters are the lifeblood of New York—but they are struggling. Fifty arts venues have closed in just the last five years, and New York’s share of the nation’s creative professionals is shrinking. The Village, Soho, and Tribeca should be at the forefront of the fight to preserve our cultural heritage and artistic future.

    • Increase funding for thriving arts and cultural organizations being attacked by federal cuts and larger affordability challenges.

    • Ensure accessibility of New York’s cultural crown jewels for low-income residents.

    • Create dedicated worker protections for artists often left out of labor laws, and experiment with guaranteed income to enable creation of tomorrow’s masterworks.

  • We must prevent our neighborhood from becoming playgrounds for billionaires.

    • Slow or block multifamily home combinations, which serve no one but the ultrarich.

    • Pass a pied-a-terre tax to prevent warehousing of homes.

    • Cancel JLWQA conversion fees that needlessly burden longtime residents.