University of Kwazulu-Natal

Civil Rights Policy Recommendations For Mayor Elect Mamdani

Bonisiwe Shabane
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civil rights policy recommendations for mayor elect mamdani

We are deeply energized by your win, Mayor-elect Mamdani. For years at Safe Horizon, we have known that safety is a human right, and that investment in the safety of survivors and communities is our collective responsibility as New Yorkers. City systems that work for survivors and follow leadership of communities have too often seemed just out of reach—not for lack of will, but for lack of opportunity. For the first time in many years, it feels possible to turn vision into action, in partnership with a mayor ready to think creatively and build systems that work for the people they’re meant... Safe Horizon was founded in response to the challenges survivors faced navigating fragmented systems. Over time, we have become experts at helping New Yorkers find safety and stability while interfacing with systems that often fall short.

Together, we are eager to help build something stronger—systems that are survivor-centered, antiracist, and grounded in trust, partnering with communities that embrace their central role in safety and healing. While our daily anti-violence work focuses on people in crisis and the trauma they carry, we are constantly reminded of the deep poverty that shapes our clients’ experiences and limits their choices. To be truly survivor-centered means confronting the violence of poverty, racism, transphobia, and more head-on—and making New York City more affordable and livable for all who call it home. We are with you on that vision. One in three New Yorkers identifies as a survivor of violence. That reality must inform how we govern, how we respond, and how we care for one another.

That’s why we were so inspired to hear your pledge on the campaign trail to invest $40.3M in expanded services to survivors. At Safe Horizon, we believe safety is a universal human right—and that we all share a collective responsibility to protect and uphold it. With 150 program sites across all five boroughs and more than 250,000 New Yorkers served each year, we are deeply woven into the fabric of this city. We love New York. And we believe that together, we can make it a place where every person is safe in their community, in their home, in their body, and in their mind. “New Yorkers, and Mayor-Elect Mamdani in particular, have an open window of opportunity to fundamentally shift the city from maintaining the status quo between the haves and have-nots to actively pursuing housing justice.”

With housing affordability as the linchpin of his platform—and half of all New York City renters rent-burdened—Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has an opportunity to make right what decades of leaders could not. The Mayor-elect’s ambitious agenda has the potential to provide more than verbal affirmations to freeze rent and foreshadows a political will to enter a trailblazing era of human rights enforcement, with the fights for... Widening the view, it is clear as day that our global order is splintered when it comes to human rights and justice issues. The United States’ repressive conduct and enhanced surveillance of its own poor, working class, people of color have made us stand out in a lackluster way on the world stage, while also signaling a... In November, the United States federal government did not appear for its own review before the United Nations Human Rights Council, an opportunity afforded to each nation just once every five years. Despite the federal absence, a strong cross-section of state and local officials, and agency representatives—including our own deputy commissioner of the New York City Human Rights Commission—and a delegation of zealous human rights advocates...

representatives both in Geneva and here in New York. The following guest blog is from Maliha Safri, Professor of Economics at Drew University, and co-author of Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation, an examination of solidarity economies in New York and other... She is a volunteer canvasser for Zohran Mamdani. The views expressed are her own. New York mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani’s policies can be enacted using past precedent in the city, as well as contemporary examples from other cities. His policies are not only feasible, but they could work to improve the lives of a majority of New Yorkers who face housing precarity (68% of us are renters, with the majority facing crippling...

NYC has a history full of amazing and successful municipal projects. These include a free city public library that debuted in 1911 as ‘the People’s Palace’ on 42nd street and Fifth Ave and the famous City College, which stood from 1847 to well into the... To many it was known by the popular title: Harvard of the Proletariat. The NY City Housing Authority constructed hundreds of thousands of still-standing housing units, one of a spate of programs shaped by public investment in the New Deal. This period saw a range of programs address the housing crisis in the city, including public housing, the Mitchell Lama affordable housing cooperatives, and rent control measures. Amongst many prominent bottom-up and community-led struggles, a community garden network fought and won in the late 1990’s against then-mayor Rudy Giuliani, as he sought to raze these green spaces to the ground only...

Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, the frontrunner in the city’s mayoral race, has multiple proposals that have garnered significant interest throughout the campaign as he aims to make the city more affordable. They include a plan to create New York City’s first universal childcare program, making city buses free and freezing the rent for 1 million rent-stabilized tenants in the city. He has also proposed a tax on the city’s wealthiest residents and an increase in the city’s corporate tax rate to pay for his policy ideas, which his critics have said are unrealistic. As mayor, Mamdani would need the state legislature and the governor to approve a tax hike. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who endorsed Mamdani, has said she will not support a tax increase on the most wealthy, arguing she doesn’t want business leaders leaving the state.

Here’s more on some of his policy ideas, which have provoked intense interest as well as skepticism throughout the campaign. Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old assemblyman and democratic socialist, defied expectations when he pulled wellahead to presumed victory over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in New York City's June 24 Democratic mayoral primary. While there were 11 candidates on the ranked-choice ballot, preliminary polling named Cuomo and Mamdani the front-runners by a large margin. Cuomo frequently polled above Mamdani in the weeks leading up to voting day, but the former governor ultimately ended up calling his opponent on Tuesday night to concede. Mamdani led Cuomo 44% to 36% among first-place votes, with 96% of ballots counted as of around 1 p.m.

on Wednesday, June 25. The Democratic nominee will begin the general election as the favorite in the overwhelmingly Democratic city. Considered the more progressive candidate of the two, Mamdani's platform has included stances on rent and housing, cost of living, safety, infrastructure and relations between the city and President Donald Trump. Here is a brief look at Mamdani's stance on major city issues, based on his campaign page and reporting from USA TODAY.

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