Our Principles

1Center and power to the margins. Prioritize the leadership and experiences of Black people, people of color, migrants, women, queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people, poor people, people with disabilities, youth, people who use drugs, or trade sex, those who are homeless, and those most impacted by the City’s policies and also invested in their communities. Those on the frontlines of the City’s most dire crises must be leading the solutions.

2A city for everyone. There are no “deserving” and “undeserving” New Yorkers. All New Yorkers should have access to housing, livelihood, and resources to thrive, and no city-sanctioned programs should use life circumstances as a filter through which services are granted. We reject a city that is a “playground for the elite and for developers” and instead demand a city that is a nurturing, stable home for all of its residents.

3Start bottom-up. There is no benefit to “trickle-down” economics – or policy. New Yorkers include working class people of color with prior arrests and records, currently and formerly incarcerated people, undocumented people, people who are homeless, and people who work in illicit street economies for survival. We start with recovery, repair, and resources for the most marginalized New Yorkers, putting them in the driver’s seat of the city’s future.

4Expansive vision to address root causes. We are tired of the “tinkering” that has changed very little over the last decade. We refuse to continue investing in broken and inadequate systems that will never create the healthy, thriving communities that all New Yorkers deserve.  We need to address the root issues instead of weak reforms that protect power and status quo. No more scraps for the people; we want the whole pie.

5Stop, undo, and repair harm. Where harm has been done to communities by city policy, it must be acknowledged, undone, and a process for repair at the discretion of the people who have been harmed must begin. We must divest from systems that create undue harm to Black people, people of color, migrants, women, queer and trans people, low-income, and most impacted by the City’s policies, and not recreate these systems in other forms.

6Resources, not criminalization. There is a problem with the way that the City responds to people’s needs, which is penalizing people for their needs instead of addressing them head-on. Punishment or neglect has done nothing but expanded the web of people entangled in the City’s criminal legal system. We reject this approach and recognize that for every criminalized New Yorker, there is a social safety net or resource that has failed them.