Zellnor Myrie on creating 1 million homes and being ‘livid’ for Haitians: ‘This is personal for me’

Editor’s note: This interview has been condensed and some responses paraphrased for length and formatting.

Before running for mayor, State Senator Zellnor Myrie was already a familiar face in central Brooklyn’s Caribbean neighborhoods, including Flatbush and Crown Heights. He shares a cultural and political kinship with Haitian New Yorkers grounded in his background as the son of Costa Rican immigrants. In an interview with The Haitian Times, Myrie emphasized shared struggles around affordability, immigration advocacy and seeing new solutions to old problems.

Myrie, currently representing the 20th Senate District in Brooklyn, outlined his top priorities to keep people in the city, from creating 1 million homes to alleviating child care costs to spurring new types of jobs. He also pledged to protect immigrants, get nonprofits paid and keep New Yorkers safer.

The Haitian Times: Why do you say your connection to the Haitian community is personal?

Zellnor Myrie: [Haitians] have been my classmates, my friends, my neighbors—a deep part of the fabric of Brooklyn and, by extension, New York City. It is why what is happening in this moment has been so personal and deeply offensive to me because we share so much history as immigrants. It is why what is happening in this moment has been so personal and deeply offensive to me, because we share so much history as immigrants. 

Both of my parents are from Costa Rica. They worked hard, put food on the table, sent me to public schools, allowed me to become a lawyer and a state senator. That is the same dream, the same journey that many Haitian Americans have.

THT: Let’s talk about sanctuary city policies, then. With federal pressure increasing, what’s your position?

Myrie: I’m someone who was born to two undocumented parents. They didn’t have their citizenship when they had me, but they still took me to Kings County Hospital because I had very bad asthma and they did so without fear of deportation. I don’t know if they would be doing that in today’s atmosphere. 

With what we’re seeing coming out of this federal administration, every single person in New York City should be livid about what is happening on the attacks against the Haitian community and TPS. They should recognize that today they are coming for Haitians and tomorrow they are coming for all of us. It is important to stand in solidarity.

In the state legislature, we have a bill now called New York for All that would protect government institutions and not require unnecessary cooperation with ICE, not letting them into our buildings and ensuring that New Yorkers, regardless of their status, would be able to continue to utilize government services without the fear of deportation. We’ve held some ‘Know Your Rights’ canvases in Little Haiti and Little Caribbean, done some door knocking and showing up to places that still has some foot traffic.

One of the things I’d also like to do as the next mayor is to implement Work NYC, which is a New York City specific work permit that would allow people to work for our businesses and give them the opportunity to do the thing they came to this country to do, just like my parents. And that is work, put food on the table and be able to raise a family here.

THT: Tell us more your top three priorities—the mandate for a million homes, public opportunity agenda and public safety. 

Myrie: This is becoming a city that no one can raise their family in, that is becoming wholly unaffordable. I talk to voters every single day and almost to a person, their response to me about their number one issue is, ‘I need an affordable place to stay.’ That’s why I set a mandate for 1 million homes. We’re going to create 700,000 over the next 10 years and preserve another 300,000. To make child care affordable, I want to not only provide after school for all, I want to extend pre-K and 3K from 2:30 to 6:00 p.m. because most New Yorkers do not get off at 2:30 p.m. 

I want to add 50,000 more summer youth employment slots, provide more jobs and pathways for young people not taking the route of college education. We have a green economy, we have a care economy that can provide some opportunities for them.

Lastly on public safety, the current strategies that we’re employing are not working. We are either sending people to Rikers Island where they deteriorate and get worse, or we’re sending them to the emergency room where they cycle out after a couple of days. We have proposed a number of solutions to that. Part of that is a police and clinician trio team that is out in our subways and on our streets 24/7. It’s stabilization centers, where people can be brought out of the public space to get the diagnosis and the help toward real recovery. Pre-pandemic, we had a police head count that was closer to 36,000. I want to return that head count. 

THT: Would this mean more taxes for residents in a city that’s already unaffordable?

Myrie: None of the things I just laid out would require an increase in taxes. On the housing front, we are leveraging the private market in order to generate some of this revenue, and building and incentives around zoning and city-owned property. When we look at childcare space, other areas and jurisdictions that have made child care more universal have seen their tax revenue go up because families choose to stay. So more people are going to be here to spend their money in our local businesses to help boost the local economy. 

On the public safety piece, there are going to be places that we do have to invest and make some choices in the budget. But we end up paying more on the back end if we do not invest in this moment. What we would spend on after school, what we would spend on more clinicians and law enforcement, these things are going to save us money in the long run.

THT: The city has delayed payments to nonprofits serving immigrant communities. What’s your solution?

Myrie: These are services that are essential to the community, that most people would expect the city to be doing itself. We can make it easier for the smaller organizations to borrow money and get grant money upfront. We need to also change the culture at the mayor’s office of contract services, and elevate it to a full-level agency. Also, there should be consequences when we do not pay back on time, just like in any other industry. We must be proactive in helping our vendors and people who are doing business with the city. Not just waiting until they are in trouble to help them, but bringing City Hall and our services to them to help. 

THT: What would you do to support the for-profit small businesses?

Myrie: We got to say a plain. What has happened is that if you are politically connected, then you get access, then you get contracts, then you have opportunities to flourish. That is never how our government should operate, and it’s something that I have been forceful on. In the Senate, I introduced a bill that said, “If you are bidding on a government contract, you are restricted from giving to political campaigns for that period of when you are bidding, because we don’t even want the appearance that it was politically influenced.” 

Donald Trump issued executive orders to get rid of CDFIS and to also get rid of the Minority Business Development Agency, which had just been elevated to full agency status a little over two years ago. So we’re going to have to do a lot more than what we’re currently doing in order to make up for some of those losses if those executive orders are held up by the courts.

THT: A pressing quality of life issue is the insufficient sanitation in many parts, like Little Haiti. How would you resolve such issues?

Myrie: I applaud and respect the efforts of neighborhood cleanups, but ultimately, the responsibility is on our city government to get that done. This is part of why we pay taxes. I’d really like to focus on getting those basics done as the next mayor. We are using [sanitation] routes that have been used for many, many decades, even though communities have changed, even though technology has changed. It’s important for us to be having a conversation around how we most efficiently get the streets clean and do so in a way that still allows for people to traverse the community.

The post Zellnor Myrie on creating 1 million homes and being ‘livid’ for Haitians: ‘This is personal for me’ appeared first on The Haitian Times.