NEW YORK: On Wednesday, Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams delivered his annual ‘State of the People’ Address. In the address, he gave voice to the fears New Yorkers are facing, and featured speakers onstage to share stories of their fears and experiences – individual stories which highlight broader citywide fears. After hearing each of these testimonials, Public Advocate proposed policy solutions to address these fears, and urged New Yorkers not to give in to fear-mongering, but to respond to concerns with hope, compassion, and action.
Stories included fears of being a victim, of losing one’s home, of being unable to keep up and keep safe, of being crowded out, and of being excluded from opportunity. The Public Advocate then spoke to the need to establish freedom from fear.
Below are the stories of each of the five New Yorkers featured in the address.
Text of the Public Advocate’s remarks is available here, and full video is here.
Jason T. Bostick: The Fear of Being a Victim
Imagine losing your father to gun violence at a young age of nine. That was enough to make me fear for my own life.
Growing up in a poor neighborhood, overly exposed to violence, I diagnosed myself with PTSD. I wouldn't walk on the side of the street without parked cars. I felt death was close to me when a temperature rise.
How could I plan for the future? If I didn't believe I could make it? We’re all promised the American dream. However, stepping outside to my reality, how could I achieve the American dream with no means to? My escape for better days came from a basketball scholarship to college. Then my sister was killed, pulling me back to the projects.
Just when I thought all hope was lost, a one year pilot program called Project Restore Bed-Stuy, the first of its kind, landed in my neighborhood.
We gave two rival gangs the means to achieve the American dream. Last year we brought together six leaders, from both sides of the housing developments to talk about community safety, coping with trauma, and the future we want for ourselves and our community.
Imagine this opportunity was across all over New York City. Because of this opportunity, the neighborhood beef is squashed. We continue to work together to plan for a safe summer and a better community. And I stand here before you as a Columbia student.
Felix Guzman: The Fear of Losing One’s Home
New York is at a critical point in time for tenants like me, and when I say tenants like me, particularly, I mean tenants are neurodivergent, and also who have sometimes led non-traditional lives, including but not limited to limit the experience of having been unhoused, and also with justice involvement.
I was fortunate enough, after my experience of being incarcerated, to come back to housing, however, that did not stop my stability from being challenged, and my building actually turned into a cluster site housing facility. And then as a result, I became homeless.
I was homeless for 15 and a half months, and it was a journey, that's to say the least, having exited the shelter system, and then later on being fortunate enough to obtain a housing voucher as a male survivor of intimate partner violence.
I was led to believe that that was going to be the difference to actually stabilize myself; however, because of the accountability of not having the voucher applied in time, I lost it and however I was made, and I'm not homeless, still.I am fortunate that a way forward for me was made spite that, so I can attest to the fact that housing vouchers are not enough to build a thriving community.
If there isn't much that can be done except wait, I encourage everyone out there to agitate and push to legislate until change is effected.I am here because I fear that even with support for accessible housing, the rising cost of rent and cost of living will keep New Yorkers like me on the verge of homelessness again,on the hamster wheel of homelessness.
Second chances matter, and when a person is removed from their dignity, there's no telling what the world misses out on.
I'm afraid that landlords don't care about tenants' individual situations. In my particular case, concerning signs, dips, and holes in my ceiling, dripping water regularly threatened my safety, and the bathtub almost flooding out fully.
A frequently broken lobby door and back door which is opened by anyone and everyone. Plus, you know, the lobby door being broken leads to some impacts and so forth. I acknowledge the small changes that have been done to better the situation somewhat, but I understand that the repairs made to my home and building our patchwork minimums that lead me in an endless cycle of despair and disrepair.
Just because a person is a tenant does not mean that profit should be more important than that person's actual safety and well being. We need affordable housing, but it can't happen without the collaboration of everyone involved– elected officials, bureaucratic agencies, everyone, that includes the community.
And if I'm afraid that my landlord discriminates against me for having a housing voucher, what does that mean for someone else, who doesn't have the capacity and doesn't know?
We need affordable housing. But if banks discriminate against me for a mortgage loan, how can that happen, if I get displaced? I'm afraid my income doesn't reflect today's average median income and that assures me that New York City will no longer be the home that I've always known. And with that being said, I'll just say it again. When a person is removed from their dignity, there is no telling what the world miss out on.
Adama Konate: The Fear of Being Unable to Keep Up and Keep Safe Français: Mon nom est Adama Konate et je suis membre du Projet de Justice pour les Travailleurs. Il y a deux ans, j’ai migré de la Côte d’Ivoire à New York pour aider ma famille. Depuis mon arrivée, je travaille comme livreur pour DoorDash.
English: My name is Adama Konate and I’m a member of the Worker’s Justice Project. Two years ago I migrated from the Ivory Coast to New York City to support my family. Since arriving, I’ve worked as a delivery worker for DoorDash.
Français: Les rues sont notre lieu de travail. Pour nous, la sécurité signifie avoir des rue conçus pour nous, les livreurs, qui transportons de la nourriture, des médicaments, et tout de dont les New-Yorkais ont besoin,
English: The streets are our workplace. For us, safety means having streets designed for us delivery workers who transport food, medicine and everything that New Yorkers need.
Français: Notre lutte comme les Livreurs Unis est d’avoir un lieu de travail digne et sûr. Pour y parvenir, nous avons besoin d'un lieu de travail avec une infrastructure améliorée où nous pouvons recharger ou échanger les batteries de nos vélos électriques et nous reposer, ainsique des pistes cyclables protégées et des droits du travail renforcés.
English: Our struggle as United Delivery Workers is to have a dignified and safe workplace. To achieve this, we need a workplace with improved infrastructure where we can charge or swap our e-bike batteries and rest, as well as protected bike lanes and stronger labor rights.
Français: Nous sommes une force de travail importante dans cette ville et nous méritons des infrastructures décentes. Merci au Défendeur Public Williams d’inclure nos voix de nous aider à lutter pour garantir que les rues soient un lieu de travail sûr et décent pour nous.
English: We are an important labor force in this city and we deserve decent infrastructure. Thank you to Public Advocate Williams for including our voices and for helping us fight to ensure that the streets are a safe and decent workplace for us.
Elliott Ismail: The Fear of Being Crowded Out
I'm afraid of being lost in the crowd. I have the fear that I'm being overlooked, and not served in overcrowded schools that experience budget cuts every single year.
I'm a high school student. I'm forced to bike to school because public transportation isn’t the reality that we want it to be. I walk through metal detectors, and I struggle to put my keys, wallet, ID in my bag.
While walking through the crowded halls I'm faced with heat that is as suffocating as placing a pillow on my face. I can't breathe as I walk up four flights of stairs, trying to push through thousands of students to the staircases who are also trying to get to class, where it is now frigid in the classrooms.
I try to catch my breath while trying not to fall asleep as we learn checks and balances for the fifth time this week. This tells me that there's no space to grow, advance, and speak out. I work with hundreds of students across the city with TREEage, a student-led climate justice nonprofit working to fight climate change in New York City by changing legislation.
I hear how bad air quality is, and we have broken windows, and it's heartbreaking that our future, our now, is learning in these conditions and our buildings are centuries old. I fear the educational system is failing mem setting me up for failure. My classmates were told not to apply to certain universities and CUNYs with lower acceptance rates, because we would never get in. I applied anyway to the hardest program to get through in the CUNY system, and I got in, even despite what my school told me to do.
But I shouldn't have to do that. My school should have supported me. And the education system failed me but no New Yorker should have that to live with that fear.
Monica Sibri: The Fear of Being Excluded from Opportunity
An opportunity that allows me to stand here today.
Not just as an advocate, but as a testament to how when you do things right, from the heart and with intention, you make a difference beyond the moment.
Eleven years ago, the city, the Office of the Public Advocate, and the New York Immigration Coalition took a chance on me. I lived in fear of never getting an education, a job, and separated from my family.
Today, I have transformed those fears into opportunities of action, giving back to the same movement that built me. So how do we continue to have a sustainable impact when the city systems are not promoting opportunity – in a way, lately, they’re preventing it. You may say that's just how government works, but it does not have to be. Today I use this space to bring attention to a pervasive and often unseen fear among our new neighbors. The migrant children and families selling candy in our city’s subways.
Imagine, at such a tender age, to navigate an underground world of not just trains, but of complex social and legal challenges. Children carry not just candy, but also the heavy weight of uncertainty, fear of making the wrong decision, fear of displacement, and the terrifying possibility of separation from their families.
For three months, with social workers and volunteers, we walked subways, listened to heartfelt stories, and confronted the stark reality of needs unmet and potentials untapped. What we found was not just a call for help, but a deep seated desire among the children and their families to belong, contribute and succeed.
Via Project Algún Día, which means someday, we serve our community. Take the case of a mother we met. She was just sent to a shelter in Staten Island, selling candy with her four year old kid on the ferry. Critical eyes looked at her – she is alone, doesn't want to do this, but knows no other way.
She walks in fear of payment permanently being kicked off the ferry. Her only focus is on protecting and providing for her child. This moment challenges all to rethink our approaches and embrace innovative collaborative solutions.
Palm cards are not enough. We need hands joined in support, hearts and empathy, and policies that protect and empower to reshape fears into frontiers of opportunity for every child, every family, every newcomer who dreams of a better tomorrow, just like they did for me.
Back to press reports