COVID-19 RECOVERY

This pandemic has left a profound mark on our city, it has claimed our loved ones and crippled our most vulnerable and marginalized communities. The pandemic has exacerbated existing inequities and policies needing improvement. In order to promote a speedy recovery, we will need a focused effort to address the mounting needs.

  • Staten Island/Brooklyn COVID-19 Recovery Task Force Unit 
    • As a subsection of the NYC Mayor’s COVID-19 Recovery Roundtable and Health Equity Task Force, we will establish a task force – solely focused on the issues in the district, to conduct outreach to schools, healthcare facilities, families, and small businesses impacted by the pandemic and identify the necessary resources needed on the ground, and plan for the future. This task force will provide reporting to ensure that it is accountable to you, the residents.
  • Mobile offices in Staten Island and Brooklyn
    • With the district spread out in the north and east shores of Staten Island, along with southern Brooklyn, the goal will be to ensure we have a presence in every corner of the district. She plans to implement mobile office hours to make sure constituents have direct access to staff to receive information on unemployment services, funds, and grants available to small businesses impacted by the pandemic, and receive information on COVID testing and vaccination options. 

HEALTHCARE 

The pandemic has laid bare the inequities in access to quality healthcare. The spike in COVID-19 cases in the district underscored Staten Island’s status as being the only borough without a city-run public hospital. Although our private hospitals held, healthcare services remain precarious as we enter this next phase of life with COVID-19. This begins with:

  • Enhanced support for mental health services.
  • One in five New Yorkers suffer from a mental health problem or substance use disorder, and too many go untreated. As a daughter who watched their mother suffer from schizophrenia and thoughts disorder since she was seven years old, Bianca knows far too well how this affects loved ones and a family unit. Bianca plans to provide a holistic plan to not only increase access to treatment for those who suffer from mental illness but also support the families who deal with this on a day-to-day basis. 
  • Increase funding for clubhouses to be established across the district and statewide.
  • Increase funding and service efforts to provide at-home medication administration and treatment. 
  • Support funding for additional supportive housing beds for those who are homeless and suffering from severe mental health illnesses. 
  • Establish and support hands-on counseling services for families. 
  • Working to support initiatives to support funding for safety-net hospitals. 
  • Increased funding for training healthcare professionals within the district.
  • Support a comprehensive and feasible plan to provide healthcare coverage for all New Yorkers. 
  • Increase funding support and protection for home healthcare workers. 

EDUCATION

As a proud graduate of Curtis High School, Bianca has lived experience and understands the challenges facing our faculty, staff, students, and families in public education. Students continue to suffer emotionally and academically, while teachers are left to manage the fallout. It is imperative that together, we address the negative impacts that COVID has left throughout our schools. 

  • Advocating to ensure our public schools scale up healthcare professionals, social workers, psychologists, and guidance counselors to meet the needs of students
  • Work with both state and city governments to implement an online education platform that provides interactive learning for students, but also helps to train faculty to build their skillsets. 
  • Provide incentives and access to resources for teachers to advance their education. 
  • Working with nonprofits to provide free financial literacy education programming in public schools. 
  • Work to increase public school teacher salaries through Federal and State investments.

HOUSING

Housing is a fundamental human right and we must do everything we can to ensure that our community can afford to live in their neighborhoods while living in a safe and sound environment. When they cannot, we need to ensure there are systems in place to assist them in their time of need.

  • Amplifying available housing resources.
  • Supporting the Housing Access Voucher Program.
  • Investing in supportive housing with wrap-around service models.
  • Holding NYCHA accountable for repairs and maintenance services needed in their facilities.
  • Advocating for increased funding from federal and state governments to be allocated directly to NYCHA to invest in improvements to sites across the district and state.

CLIMATE CHANGE 

We have been pummeled time and time again by increasingly damaging weather events. Whether Superstorm Sandy or most recently – Hurricane Ida – Staten Island and Brooklyn continue to feel the impacts of the climate change crisis without a comprehensive plan on how to move forward.

  • Strengthening and preparing the district by establishing a resiliency plan that seeks to understand the experience of residents and is based on science. 
  • Survey and audit NYCHA needs as developments continue to suffer from damages from Superstorm Sandy. 
  • Converting the fleet of transit buses to electric-only.
  • Demand increased federal infrastructure dollars. historical for roadways but we could advocate for coastal resiliency and sewer repair. Given the connective nature of roads and sewers, we should be proposing an alignment of federal street repair and reconstruction as well as City sewer maintenance and improvements based upon environmental factors as evidenced by weather event impacts.
  • Mandate composting and recycling to reach Zero Waste.
  • Keeping in tack wetlands statewide.

SMALL BUSINESS AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT 

In order for our community to experience true recovery, we must support the fabric which drives our economy and employs our neighbors and locally-owned businesses. We need to be able to ensure Staten Islanders and Brooklynites have access to family-sustaining wages, workplace protections, and opportunities for economic mobility.

  • Advocating for direct financial support for restaurants and hospitality-based businesses is still impacted by the global health crisis.
  • Building investment in youth employment programs. 
  • Incentivizing local business commerce.
  • Streamlining the MWBE/DBE certification process and making it more accessible for prospective businesses.
  • Increase MWBE/LGBTQ engagement in contract procurement. 
  • Increase the state’s investment in workforce development to $200 million, and engage non-profit training providers, and private sector employers to further New York’s goal to build back stronger as we emerge from the pandemic.

TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE 

Access to speedy and equitable transportation continues to be a challenge. This barrier to reliable public transit infringes upon the daily lives of our working families.

  • Implementation of Bus Rapid Transit and the inclusion of Staten Island in the state’s Interborough Express Rail project. 
  • With New York set to receive $22 billion in federal aid, advocating for direct financial support to revitalize and maintain the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
  • Study the need for an extension of the B train line to Coney Island to provide for speedy transportation services between Brooklyn and Manhattan. 
  • Expand transportation access points in DUMBO.

PUBLIC SAFETY

With a laser focus on investing and bolstering community partnership, we aim to strategically utilize the asset that is our law enforcement to uplift and build trust with neighbors.

  • Support equal benefits for disabled or injured law enforcement.
  • Expand outreach and prevention efforts to combat opioid abuse.
  • Changes in bail reform, otherwise known as pre-trial reform, must be addressed in a comprehensive manner. Our communities have been shellshocked by incidents and stories of crime and incendiary behavior across the city. Efforts to change bail reform must allow judges levity to enforce the law and keep repeat offenders off the street. Concurrently, first-time, low-level offenders should not have an issue of making bail a reason to be jailed or in custody for extraordinary periods of time.

GUN VIOLENCE

Gun violence has plagued our communities for far too long. Gun violence is a public health crisis, and our state must make investments to ensure we are educating and providing our communities with the necessary tools to combat this crisis. As someone who has dealt with the experience of losing someone to gun violence, Bianca understands the impact this has on loved ones and will be a staunch advocate to bring resources back to the district to ensure our youth are provided with the programming necessary to succeed. 

  • Amplifying community-based intervention and prevention programs and securing additional funding for outreach and conflict resolution.
  • Investment in technological solutions to prevent gun violence. 
  • Enhancing existing gun safety laws and mitigating out-of-state gun trafficking into New York. 
  • Enforcing the Red Flag Gun Protection Law to remove firearms from those accused of domestic violence, and protect victims of domestic violence. 
  • Investing in summer youth employment programs. 
  • Increasing state’s investment in building recreational centers in NYCHA complexes and across the district to provide our youth with an outlet and programming to help them succeed in life such as STEM and coding courses, providing SAT and college preparedness courses, and introducing students to trade schools and vocational colleges to hone in on their skillsets.