MEET CARLINA
Carlina Rivera was born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Growing up in Section 8 housing in Council District 2, she has an intimate understanding of the issues everyday New Yorkers face. Whether it’s living paycheck to paycheck, taking on the burden of student loans, or navigating government benefit during times of economic instability, Carlina has lived it. As a New York City Council Member since 2018, she’s proven herself to be both pragmatic and compassionate in her fight to find solutions to these very issues, no matter the challenges standing in the way.
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Within her first term at the Council, Carlina has brought in over a billion dollars to her district to improve services, programs, schools, parks, and cultural institutions. She also built strong and diverse coalitions among her colleagues to introduce and pass the most legislation of any sitting Council Member:
• Carlina wrote the bill making sexual harassment a human rights violation under the New York City human rights law.
• She wrote and passed the bill to make the Open Streets program permanent, and to ensure equity in distributing city resources so that every community that wants an open street can have one.
• She ushered through historic worker protections to improve workplace conditions, and with the first legislative package of its kind in the country ensure basic dignity for delivery workers.
• She passed legislation to hold predatory landlords accountable, and has fought tirelessly to protect and expand affordable housing and homeownership.
• She protected small business owners during the pandemic with legislation to help them acquire pandemic relief aid, access personal protective equipment, and adhere to rapidly changing and unclear COVID compliance standards.
• She championed construction of New York City’s first digital skills training center at Zero Irving prioritizing historically ignored lower income New Yorkers for tech workforce opportunities.
Additionally, Carlina has passed legislation around immigration, criminal justice reform, small business survival, and pedestrian and bicycle safety.
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Carlina graduated from Marist College with a B.A. in Journalism after attending local district schools her entire life. Beginning her career in afterschool programming at some of New York City’s highest-needs schools, she went on to serve her local community, creating and organizing initiatives for seniors and New Yorkers experiencing homelessness as Director of Programs and Services at Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES), a local non-profit focused on social justice.
Even before serving as an elected official, Carlina has a long history of bringing people together to improve New Yorkers’ lives, resources, and well-being — as a community board member, an organizer, and a key leader on the taskforce that secured funding for East River waterfront resiliency in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. After Sandy, Carlina helped coordinate thousands of volunteers to assist over 10,000 homebound residents as part of a recovery network that still supports families in the community today.
WHY WE NEED CARLINA IN THE COUNCIL
Right now, generations of New Yorkers face fewer prospects for access to higher education without crippling loans, meaningful and stable work, financial stability, permanent affordable housing, and environmental security than generations past. While change takes time, we can only achieve it with practical and productive leaders whose life experiences reflect deep roots in the communities they represent.
Carlina not only has those deep roots and the lived experience to address the issues New Yorkers face on the ground, but the political will, drive, and coalition-building ability that has enabled her to pass legislation and secure resources that deliver real progress as urgently as the moment demands — and if we’ve learned nothing else with the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that our governing institutions are in desperate need for people like Carlina who know how to cut through the noise, and to put it simply, take care of people.
That’s the job of the elected officials who represent you, and Carlina has proven time and time again that she has the guts to keep that promise. If we want to win the fight for real, long-term progress in our city, Carlina Rivera is the one to keep delivering it for us.
