Dear John,

As soon as the stay-at-home orders began, google spreadsheets began flying around many of our networks, with people signing up to bring food and supplies to homebound neighbors through contactless-deliveries, offering to donate their monthly MetroCards to essential workers, volunteering to call isolated seniors for companionship, and just checking in on each other.

Mutual aid networks sprung up all over where neighbors organized to support each other. Mutual aid has egalitarian roots, rather than one-directional charity. The idea is that people give support to others when and how they can, and receive support when they need it. In a time of pandemic, healthy people with time or resources to give are showing up to support more vulnerable neighbors, with the expectation that they themselves will need and get support from their community when they need it.

These mutual aid networks are strengthening community ties and filling the gaps where the social safety net and public policy have let people fall through. This crisis is devastating so many communities and exposing deep divides in access to health and financial resources. But together, through mutual aid to provide relief, and organizing to free vulnerable incarcerated people, house the homeless, protect workers, and demand a just recovery (there’s still time to join our “Organizing for Justice During COVID-19” town hall tonight at 6:30 pm), we are building a path forward.

Many of you have already stepped up to deliver groceries to neighbors, coordinate lists of resources, create GoFundMe’s to buy meals for hardworking hospital staff or funeral expenses for low-income families who have lost a loved one, and so many other acts of community support. Thank you. It is profoundly important.

Today, in addition to our usual COVID-19 updates, we’re sharing information about mutual aid networks in our district where you can ask for or give help.

My office is continuing to provide assistance to constituents, connecting people to state and federal resources, helping to troubleshoot applications for city loans and other support. We look to do that work in ways that provides people the help they need, but also builds our collective capacity to help each other. We are connecting with many of the mutual aid networks in the district and have already partnered with them to meet the needs of our neighbors.

You don’t have to agree with Karl Marx on everything (or even on much) to believe that “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” is a pretty sound principle at a time like this.

In this email:
City and State Updates
Mutual Aid Networks in and around District 39
Get Out the Count Census Action Opportunity

City and State Updates

Governor Cuomo has extended the state’s PAUSE order until May 15. Non-essential businesses will remain closed at least until then, and likely longer as the state begins to coordinate with neighboring states and public health experts about what reopening might look like and what conditions will need to be met. You can follow the milestone data being released by the city here.
The city released updated numbers on those of our neighbors who have died due to COVID-19, including those who were not able to be tested but are presumed to have had the virus. The loss in our city is staggering, and still growing. As of today, there are 111,424 cases in NYC, 29,741 have been hospitalized, and 10,899 people are presumed to have died.
New Yorkers across the state are now ordered to wear masks whenever we are outside. Please continue to preserve medical grade masks for healthcare workers, non-medical grade masks and homemade masks will do fine.
Restaurant, delivery, and building service workers can now send their children to the city's regional enrichment centers for free childcare and learning.
The mayor released his executive budget proposal today, which City Council will review and respond to more fully soon. He is proposing a $89.3 billion budget, which is $8 billion less than the $97.4 billion he’s expecting the city to spend through the end of this fiscal year on June 30 (which has also already faced some cuts).

Mutual Aid Networks in and around District 39

The mutual aid networks in our neighborhoods take various forms, but all are available to help connect neighbors to each other to help with immediate needs. Many are collecting donations as well to help provide groceries and other needs. Here is contact information, by neighborhood:

Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Columbia Waterfront, Williamsburg): Brooklyn Mutual Aid Facebook Group or [email protected] or 929-314-0899‬
Park Slope and Gowanus: [email protected] and 929-333-4389
Windsor Terrace: Friel Friends (4 block radius around Friel Place): 904-502-4249
Kensington: Kensington/Windsor Terrace Mutual Aid Facebook Group
And People in Need, started by neighbor extraordinaire Nowshin Ali, is taking donations for groceries that local volunteers deliver.
Borough Park (and more of South Brooklyn): South Brooklyn Community Mutual Aid

To get connected to other mutual aid networks across the city, visit: mutualaid.nyc

Existing grassroots organizations are also organizing funding drives to collect emergency assistance and provide mutual aid for their members and the communities they represent, particularly immigrant communities who were cut out of the federal stimulus funds. We have shared a few funds in past emails, but want to encourage donations today to Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), the only undocumented South Asian, membership-led organization in our city, with a large Bangladeshi Muslim membership in Kensington. Funds raised will support members in Kensington, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, Richmond Hill, Jamaica, and Parkchester. Support the campaign here.

Get Out the Count Census Action Opportunity

Making sure all of our neighbors get counted in the 2020 Census is essential to ensuring that our community has the resources and representation we need for the next decade. Sign up to join me for a text-bank to get out the Census count on Monday. It will be fun and easy, and it's a critical way to support our community. Sign up here.

And if you haven’t yet filled out the Census yourself, do it right now: Visit my2020census.gov or call 844-330-2020.