Our next Borough President needs to think big to tackle the affordability crisis, deliver on public safety and mental health, and address the quality of life issues facing our communities.
That’s why for each of the last 50 days of this campaign, I’m introducing a new idea to face Manhattan’s biggest challenges head on.
We began this effort on Day 50 with an idea to address quality of life issues in Manhattan – a key emphasis of my campaign for Borough President.
As Borough President, I’ll deliver an on-going report card on the state of our neighborhoods: measurements like cleaning streets, quieting down blocks, removing unsightly scaffolding, responding to public safety complaints, and more.
We’ll take the COMPStat model for quality of life and boil it down to a neighborhood level. This will empower local representatives to push for better service, show steady progress, and give us proactive ways to attack the hotspot areas hurting our neighborhoods.
Next up is public safety and mental health.
Our campaign released a series of ideas, calling for Albany to address New Yorkers’ legitimate concerns about the effectiveness of our criminal justice and mental health systems, while demonstrating how the city can step up and tackle this crisis.
Specifically, I’m calling for the city to hire more officers, step up foot patrols, and make safrt presence known on our streets and subways. We must also expand proven interventions to compassionately transfer mentally ill populations off the subways and streets and into programs they need by adding additional mental health beds and staff at city agencies.
Last but not least, we must do more to lower housing costs in Manhattan.
As I like to say: in the world’s greatest city, you shouldn’t have to win the lottery to find a good place to live. That’s why as part of this campaign I’m proposing a plan to build 100,000 new homes by accelerating office conversions, building affordable housing on public land, and putting the Borough President’s office directly in charge of land use approvals.
Our 50 Days 50 Ideas series introduces new ideas to help our city in the areas that matter most.
You can find our full running list of ideas at www.keithpowers.nyc.
Be sure to check back on June 24th for all 50 of our ideas that we’ll take to the Borough President’s office to improve our borough for every New Yorker.
Keith Powers is City Council Member in District 4 and a candidate for Manhattan Borough President.
