Quality & Equitable Education for All

Alexa has spent her entire career fighting for education justice — from her time as PS 172’s PTA president, to her work as Parent Representative of the M.S. 88 School Leadership Team. She has continued to champion public education since taking office, and was one of few council members to vote against Eric Adams’s major cuts to the city’s education budget. 

Here’s how we’ll guarantee education for all New Yorkers.

What we’ve accomplished:

• Fought Eric Adams’s disastrous cuts to the education budget: When Eric Adams attempted to gut funding for schools and educators, Alexa fought back against his cuts, restoring millions in cuts to public schools and childcare programs.

• Improved education spaces and playgrounds: Alexa has invested in schools and schoolyards across the district — such as the green Community Schoolyard at the P.S. 503 and P.S. 506 joint campus. The playground, built with green infrastructure, not only provides recreation space for students, it also will absorb ​​620,000 gallons of runoff annually, helping to reduce flooding in the neighborhood.

• Secured $4 million investment to develop a Latine Studies Curriculum Initiative: Alexa worked with community partners to secure funding for a Latine curriculum for NYC public schools. In a moment when MAGA lawmakers are banning books and erasing history from schools, Alexa fought to make sure the culturally-relevant education has a home in our city’s public schools.

• Invested in parks and green spaces: Alexa tackled District 38’s aging park infrastructure, and created more safe playground spaces for our district’s young people. She helped turn an underused concrete softball field into a popular state-of-the-art skate park in Red Hook’s Harold Ickes Playground. She secured $1.6 million to renovate Sunset Park’s Rainbow Playground, and is fighting for other park improvements in places like Pena Herrera Playground in Sunset Park.

What we’ll keep fighting for in our next term:

• Fight for universal childcare: Alexa will support the creation of a citywide Office of Childcare, tasked with creating free childcare for all NYC residents. She will fight for fully funding Pre-K and 3-K programs, rejecting cuts to early childcare and education.

• Fully fund education: While Trump and Musk want to dismantle public education, Alexa will champion fully investing in our schools and educators. She will reject cuts to our public education system and fight for more investments in multilingual learners, English-language learners, arts, and services for students with learning and physical disabilities. 

• Stop ICE from entering our schools: While Eric Adams tries to undermine long-standing immigration laws in our city, Alexa will make sure teachers, administrators, and students know their rights and have a plan of action if ICE targets schools for deportation raids. She will fight to make sure our city does everything we can to protect our children and families.

Safe, Affordable and Dignified Housing

Since joining the New York City Council in 2022, Alexa has fought the wealthy developers and politicians who want to make this city a playground for the rich. Here’s how we’re building a city where every New Yorker can have an affordable, safe, and dignified home.

What we’ve accomplished:

• Improved transparency for NYCHA management: More than 16,000 of the city’s public housing units are now managed by private companies. These privately managed NYCHA units are subject to less oversight than those under public control, and have higher eviction rates and slower response times to maintenance and repair requests. In 2024, Alexa passed legislation that holds these private companies to account for their management of public housing, and requires companies to report their eviction rates, repair costs, and how long it takes companies to complete vital repairs. 

• Made sure renters don’t lose their homes after fires: After deadly fires destroyed apartments across NYC, Alexa fought for legislation that protects renters after devastating fires. The new law requires the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to work with the city’s Fire Department to make sure tenants know their rights when they are displaced by fires, and protect them from illegal evictions and delayed repairs. 

• Stood with rent-stabilized tenants: Nearly one million apartments in NYC are rent-stabilized, providing protection to renters from massive rent increases from landlords.Yet in the midst of the city’s housing crisis, Mayor Eric Adams oversaw major rent hikes to rent-stabilized tenants, allowing his Rent Guidelines Board appointees to increase rent for 2.5 million New Yorkers. Alexa fought the mayor’s rent hikes and protested the big landlords who raised the rent. Her activism showed tenants how the Rent Guidelines Board works and put pressure on the mayor for raising rents in the middle of a housing and homelessness crisis. 

• Stabilized thousands of District 38 tenants with constituent services: Alexa’s constituent services team has assisted thousands of District 38 tenants with housing issues — from helping secure housing vouchers and assistance programs, to securing long-overdue repairs in apartments across the district.

• Developed community-centered land use policies: More than half of renters in District 38 are rent-burdened. Alexa’s team worked with community groups and constituents across the district to develop land use principles that put the needs of our residents front and center. 

What we’ll keep fighting for in our next term:

• Fight slumlords: When a landlord consistently refuses to make repairs, harasses tenants, and doesn’t respond to complaints and violations, the City must escalate its code enforcement. Alexa will support funding for more code enforcement and champion legislation to take homes back from the city’s worst landlords who put more New Yorkers at risk of losing their homes.

• Expand community ownership: Real estate investors and private equity are buying up buildings throughout New York City, skyrocketing rents and making homeownership even more out of reach for us. In her next term, Alexa will fight for the Community Land Act package, which allows community land trusts and nonprofits to develop new and preserve existing permanently affordable housing.

• Protect tenants: In her next term, Alexa will help rebuild the Office of Tenant Protections. She will fight to restore the $25 million Mayor Adams cut from the office and make sure tenants have legal support when dealing with landlords who refuse to make basic repairs.

• Fund NYCHA and public housing repairs: District 38 contains two of the largest public housing complexes in Brooklyn — Red Hook East & Red Hook West. Public housing plays a vital role in keeping New York City affordable for working residents. As former chair of the Alexa won significant investments to cover rental arrears for NYCHA residents left out during COVID, added hundreds of millions for repairs, and restored cuts from Mayor Adams to the Vacant Unit Readiness program, which prepares and rehabilitates NYCHA units for new tenants. In her next term, Alexa will fight for funding for NYCHA, including much-needed repairs to ensure all public housing residents can live in dignified housing.

Lowering the Cost of Living

Working-class families are fleeing the city due to the high cost of living. Meanwhile, more and more millionaires have flocked to New York City in the years since the height of the COVID pandemic. We must stop the exodus of working New Yorkers from the city. Here’s how we’re creating a Brooklyn that we all can afford.

What we’ve accomplished:

• Helped District 38 residents afford their utilities, groceries, and other basic needs: 85 percent of New Yorkers say the cost of food is rising faster than their incomes. Working New Yorkers are also struggling to pay utility bills, and access affordable healthcare. Since taking office, Alexa’s office has prioritized making sure District 38 residents can afford basic needs like groceries and medical care for their families, and helped more than one thousand constituents apply and recertify for public benefits. 

• Clawed back stolen money from scammers: Scammers have rigged ATM machines to steal money from New Yorkers receiving food stamps (SNAP) benefits and Excluded Workers Fund benefits from the state, taking tens of thousands of dollars from hard-working New Yorkers to buy high-end watches and other luxury goods. Alexa’s constituent services team worked to claw back those benefits and make sure scammers didn’t prevent district residents from paying rent or buying groceries. 

What we’ll keep fighting for in our next term:

• Expand tax credits to working families: The wealthiest New Yorkers and corporations pay less in taxes than working-class New Yorkers. We need the state to change our tax code to make sure working families can afford food, rent, and utilities. Alexa passed a resolution in the City Council to expand tax credits for working families, and will advocate with her state colleagues to pass these credits and put money in the pockets of working-class New Yorkers.

• Expand Fair Fares program to more New Yorkers: Alexa will fight to expand the Fair Fares program, which cuts the cost of public transportation in half for eligible New Yorkers. She will also fight to build a fair tax system and tax the rich at the state level and use the revenue to expand free public transportation across the five boroughs.

• Put more dollars in New Yorkers’ pockets: Thousands of New Yorkers are eligible for public assistance programs that help them afford food, healthcare, and other basic needs. Yet far too many struggle to apply for those benefits due to technological and language barriers, and serious short-staffing at the Human Resources Administration, the city’s department that manages social services. Alexa will fight to make sure more New Yorkers, including elderly residents and new families, are accessing these vital programs. She will fight to fully invest in a government that works for all of us and increase funding for outreach and education to make sure no New Yorker needlessly goes without food or healthcare.

Protecting Our Immigrant Neighbors

40 percent of New Yorkers are immigrants. Trump and Musk’s cruel policy of mass deportations is bringing chaos to our city and threatens to tear families apart. As chair of the New York City Council’s immigration committee, Alexa will stand up to Trump’s cruelty and fight for a city where no one needs to live in fear of unlawful arrests. Here’s how we’re building a New York that supports the rights of all New Yorkers, no matter where they were born: 

What we’ve accomplished:

• Stopped the harassment of immigrant New Yorkers: When Eric Adams tried to weaken forty years of NYC sanctuary city laws, Alexa was on the frontlines fighting to make sure ICE doesn’t make unlawful raids in municipal facilities. 

• Expanded legal and adult education services for all New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status: Alexa fought against cuts to adult education services, which connects all New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status, to programs that help adults improve their literacy, learn English, and complete a high school education. Alexa’s office has also expanded constituent services, including working with CUNY Citizenship Now! to offer free and confidential legal support, organizing multilingual Know Your Rights workshops, and offering free, multilingual tax preparation services in-office.

• Invested in language access: In one of the world’s most linguistically diverse cities, Alexa helped secure $2 million to expand interpretation services across the city, including a first-of-its-kind Community Interpreter Bank that allows all New York residents to access information and services in the languages spoken in their homes. She also helped secure $10 million to adult literacy programs that help New Yorkers with English language learning and GED coursework — the largest increase in decades. 

What we’ll keep fighting for in our next term:

• Protect New Yorkers from unlawful arrests from ICE: Since Trump took office in 2025, New Yorkers are under threat from a vengeful federal administration that tears families apart, disappears New York City residents, and throws them in jails thousands of miles from their home. Alexa will continue to fight our sell-out mayor and make sure the city doesn’t unwind long-standing laws that protect New Yorkers from chaotic raids and arrests that make all of us less safe.

• Stop Eric Adams from evicting families from shelters: In the midst of the city’s homelessness crisis, Eric Adams pushed to kick asylum seekers and their families out of the city’s shelter system. Alexa will continue to fight against this policy, which will increase street homelessness and cost the city billions in lost wages. In her next term, Alexa will advance legislation that rescinds this cruel policy from the Mayor.

• Fight Trump and Musk’s chaotic agenda: From ending birthright citizenship to ending Temporary Protection Status for Haitians and other immigrant New York residents, Trump and Musk’s cruel immigration policies make New York City less safe and more unstable. In her next term, Alexa will support local legislation to defend our city from the billionaires’ chaos — from pushing local laws and resolutions defending our neighbors, to supporting the city’s lawsuits against the Trump administration, to joining immigration advocates to resist deportations and cuts to vital services that benefit all New Yorkers.

Building Safe Communities

We can reduce crime by reducing the conditions that lead to crime like poverty and underemployment. Police and jails now do the work of social workers, educators, and health care providers. We can change that by investing in programs that stabilize and support New Yorkers and connect them with stable housing, meaningful employment, and social services. These are more effective interventions to prevent violence in our communities.

What we’ve accomplished:

• Prevented discriminatory policing practices and racial profiling: Alexa championed the How Many Stops Act, a common-sense good governance bill that requires the NYPD to close loopholes on reporting when the department stops and searches New Yorkers. Access to this data will help identify and remedy patterns of discrimination and abuse.

• Fought for funding services that keep communities safe: The safest communities are the ones with the most resources. Alexa fought Eric Adams’ most damaging cuts in the city budget, and demanded funding for services that reduce the conditions that lead to crime — including education, healthcare, housing support, and libraries. 

1. Created safer streets: From young children to the elderly, too many New Yorkers are injured and killed on our streets when we don’t prioritize street safety. Alexa co-sponsored and passed legislation to study and reduce traffic violence within New York City. These bills required the NYC Department of Transportation to redesign dangerous intersections and take steps to reduce dangerous driving within senior pedestrian zones.

What we’ll keep fighting for in our next term:

• Invest in mental health care: Alexa will fight for the “Crisis to Care” plan to invest in $55 million to expand the city’s mental health network, reduce waitlists for vital mental health care, and ensure that all New Yorkers can get the treatment they need before they experience a crisis. She will also fight for investments in the mental health workforce and increase funding to hire more peer specialists in our mental health system. 

• Ensure that the NYPD complies with the law: A federal monitor found that the NYPD underreports its stops of New Yorkers, undercounting up to 40,000 stops per year. In her next term, Alexa will make sure that the NYPD complies with the How Many Stops law and ensure that no city agency is above the law. 

• Invest in community safety: Through community safety walks with constituents,  Alexa’s heard directly from neighbors about what makes their neighborhoods feel safe. It's not just police presence — it's also better street lighting, improved sanitation services, better street design, and vibrant businesses. Alexa’s fought against cuts to public services that improve street-level safety, and will continue to push for more funding for them in her next term. 

Standing Up for Workers’ Rights

From educators to bus drivers, sanitation workers to artists, workers make New York City run. As billionaire bosses try to undermine our right to organize for safe, fair work places, New York City leaders must fight to keep NYC a union town. Here’s how we’ll fight for workers’ rights in New York City:

What we’ve accomplished:

• Demanded an end to unfair firings in New York City: Alexa co-sponsored the Secure Jobs Act, which prohibits New Yorkers from being fired on the spot for no reason and limits electronic surveillance of employees by their bosses.

• Supported workers’ right to unionize: As mega-corporations try to undermine workers’ lawful rights to work together to fight for unions, better pay, and workplace safety protections, Alexa joined other members of City Council and union leaders to affirm the right to organize. 

• Stood with workers fighting for fair workplaces: From striking Amazon workers to standing with educators, Alexa has joined thousands of workers on picket lines across the city, making sure that working New Yorkers know local leaders have their back. Since becoming a council member, she’s joined Teamster Amazon workers, laundromat workers, actors with SAG-AFTRA, Starbucks baristas, and nurses from NYSNA on the picket lines, demanding fair wages, good working conditions, and ethical guard rails for emerging technology like AI. 

What we’ll keep fighting for in our next term: 

• Expand funding for labor law enforcement: Each year, nearly $1 billion of wages are stolen from workers across New York. Alexa will fight to fully fund enforcement within the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protections and make sure employers who repeatedly steal wages from their workers are held to account.

• Establish prevailing wage requirements for city-funded projects: Alexa sponsored legislation that requires employers receiving $1 million or more in financial assistance from NYC and NYC EDC to provide prevailing wages for its construction workers. She also sponsored a new bill that will require the New York City Economic Development Corporation to report on the number of jobs created and job training provided in major new projects to ensure New Yorkers are being connected to meaningful work opportunities.

Building a Climate-Resilient Brooklyn

From Superstorm Sandy to Hurricane Ida, the climate crisis has arrived in Brooklyn. District 38 residents are vulnerable to extreme heat waves, flooding, and dangerous sea level rise. Alexa has fought for clean air in our communities, protections for our coastal communities, and expanding green spaces in our neighborhoods to reduce flooding and heat islands. Here’s how we’ll fight for a livable Brooklyn: 

What we’ve accomplished:

• Held corporations accountable for pollution: Corporate polluters like Amazon have clogged our streets and polluted our air with last-mile distribution facilities, which are disproportionately located in low-income communities and communities of color. Alexa pushed the city to study and establish regulations for last-mile distribution facilities and hold companies to account for adding air pollution to our communities. She also passed major legislation requiring corporate cruise ship companies to connect to electric shore power when docked rather than idling with diesel engines. 

• Prevent children’s exposure to air pollution: After constituents raised concerns about their children breathing in exhaust at neighborhood parks, Alexa passed legislation to restrict cars idling outside of city parks. 

• Expanded parks and green spaces in our district: After years of disinvestment, Alexa secured funding for District 38 to renovate parks and green spaces in our community, including Rainbow Playground and Martin Luther Park. 

What we’ll keep fighting for in our next term:

• Fight for full enforcement of Local Law 97. More than two-thirds of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings. Local Law 97 is the city’s major climate legislation that requires large buildings to reduce their emissions. While corporate politicians like Eric Adams try to undermine the legislation, Alexa will work with the City Council to ensure the city stays on track to meet its life-saving climate goals. 

• Protect New Yorkers from extreme heat. Each year, 350 New Yorkers die from extreme heat, with more deaths on the line as the planet gets hotter. The health risks associated with extreme heat underscore the urgency of reversing austerity budgeting for our parks and investing in tree cover and other forms of life-saving shade, hiring more lifeguards and expanding hours at our city’s pools, investing in the city’s Cooling Assistance Benefit program and expand eligibility for free fans and air conditioners, and expanding cooling centers and the city’s Cool Streets programs.