NYC Council District 22 Election: Evie Hantzopoulos Seeks Seat

ASTORIA, QUEENS — Democratic voters in New York City's 22nd Council district, which includes Astoria, Rikers Island, parts of Jackson Heights, Woodside and East Elmhurst, will see six names on their ballots when they vote in the June 22 primary election.

One of those names will be Evie Hantzopoulos, Executive Director of Global Kids and Community Board 1 member.

Patch reached out to all candidates in the election to create these profiles. Hantzopoulos' responses are below.

<b>Age (as of Election Day)</b>

56

<b>Position Sought</b>

City Council, District 22

<b>Party Affiliation</b>

Democrat

<b>Neighborhood of residence (i.e., East Village, Astoria, etc.)</b>

Astoria

<b>Family</b>

Husband David, and three children.

<b>Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?</b>

No

<b>Education</b>

• Master of Arts, Educational Theatre, New York University.
• Bachelor of Science, Journalism, Concentration in International Relations, Boston University.

<b>Occupation</b>

Executive Director of Global Kids (September 2010-Present), a non-profit that educates, activates, and inspires youth from underserved communities to take action on critical issues facing our world and prepares them to become community leaders and global citizens.
Deputy Director of Global Kids 1996 - 2010
ASPIRA of NY, Service Leader for AmeriCorps Project Safe and Sound 1994-1996
Creative Arts Team 1990-1994

<b>Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office</b>

Community Board 1 Queens 2010 - Present. Chair of Housing Committee

<b>Campaign website</b>

www.electevie.com

<b>Why are you seeking elective office?</b>

I’m running for City Council in District 22 to be in service to the community and city that I love and bring my experience, energy, and deep commitment to equity, inclusion, and justice to the City Council. The decision to run was not easy. I love my current job and have dedicated my life to empowering youth from underserved communities and supporting them in their efforts to develop leadership, social action, and civic skills. I have three daughters, a mom with Alzheimers, and a community that counts on me. Juggling all this isn’t easy, but many women, including those of us in the “sandwich generation” do it, because in this country our systems rely on the unpaid labor of women to do the work that government often ignores. And this is also a key reason why I’m running.
Through my work with young people, years of community work and organizing, deep community connections with diverse constituencies, my working-class immigrant background, and knowledge of the issues most affecting my district, I’m well positioned to represent and engage my constituents, include them, and work with them to generate effective solutions. The decisions facing our next City Council will be profound, and the hard work ahead will include serious decisions whose solutions must be grounded in budget justice and provide our communities with what they need to thrive. I’m running to bring all the voices in my district to the New York City Council, where I’ll fight for truly affordable housing, equitable education, small business and the arts, an environment that is clean, safe, healthy and sustainable and a city where everyone can live with dignity and thrive.

<b>The single most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.</b>

Affordable housing is the most pressing issue facing our district. I will:
-Revise mandatory inclusionary housing (MIH) formula so housing is truly affordable for those currently living in the neighborhood.
-Fund the Housing and Preservation and Development department (HPD) and ensure that they enforce fines and use the money to build affordable housing
-Increase funding for legal aid for tenants
-Abolish the private tax lien foreclosure sale, which disproportionately affects seniors
-Create more supportive housing
-Penalize developers and landlords who warehouse vacant apartments
-Raise the income requirement for the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) and Senior Citizen Homeowners Exemption (SCHE) so more seniors qualify
-Create resident management corporations to manage NYCHA, instead of the blueprint or RAD
-Implement flip taxes
-Convert foreclosed properties into Community Land Trusts
-Expand the pilot basement conversion program so small homeowners can make additional income while also creating more safe and affordable housing units.

<b>What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?</b>

Having done the work in my district, I bring more than just experience. Cooperation with leaders who have deep roots in their communities, with a vision to serve ordinary New Yorkers are key to making any meaningful change happen with some expediency. My years of service within the community make me a trusted messenger and ally, and this makes me uniquely positioned to bring together groups in the District who don't ordinarily align around what should be their common cause. Sound policies are not enough - partnerships and the ability to influence and bring diverse perspectives to a collaborative table are critical. I come from an immigrant and working class background, have children who attended/attend NYC public schools, have spent my professional career in the education, youth development, and social justice field, am a working mom, and have credibility as someone who has been showing up in our community for over 20 years. I am able to convince people that we all should be afforded and have a right to health care, education, climate justice, economic prosperity and ability to live in dignity regardless of our status, race, or background. I have a long history of standing together with those most affected to fight for their needs, even when different from my own, and will continue to do so.

<b>If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)</b>

It's an empty seat.

<b>How do you think local officials performed in responding to the coronavirus? What if anything would you have done differently?</b>

The response for our local officials was inadequate. Because of their lack of timely intervention, a group of community members and I responded. I co-founded Frontline Foods Queens, injecting over $700,000 for local restaurants and providing 50,000+ meals to Queens hospital workers, food pantries, nursing homes, and NYCHA. I am a founding member of the Astoria Mutual Aid Network and a volunteer driver for Lifeline Groceries, delivering free fresh produce and groceries for families who were unable to receive government assistance . I’ve also worked with Astoria Welfare Society to provide COVID relief and prepared meals through Frontline Foods Queens for the Bangladeshi community. I didn’t sit back and watch: I organized, collaborated with neighbors, and implemented mutual aid support of the highest integrity and principals and continue to this day.
This experience has allowed me to see exactly what was missing, and reflect on how I would have responded. First, there are already ample community groups that are and have been doing on-the-ground work for years, and are trusted community partners; I would have partnered with them and provided them with the resources they would need to scale. I would have acted more quickly to ensure that even those who weren’t eligible for federal aid could access the food they needed, and pushed the state government to consider relief for small landlords affected by the rent freeze. Regarding vaccine distribution, I would have formed more partnerships with local mom and pop pharmacies from day 1, which would have also infused more money into the local economy, as well as medical clinics in the community, to increase the numbers of sites administering vaccines, and ensuring that they are easily accessible to more people. I would have financially supported the efforts of local community groups who are raising awareness and educating community members about the importance of being vaccinated. We would use on the ground partners especially since language, technical proficiency, mobility, and mistrust undermine the ability of those who need the vaccine most to get it. As an educator and parent, I would have demanded that the Department of Education do better in providing quality remote learning pedagogy, immediate access to laptops, and free broadband services. In addition, I would have kept the REC centers open so that those needing supervision and support during the day for schooling would have received it.
It’s important to note that COVID is not over, and we will be feeling its effects for years to come. This is why I support providing enrichment for students who have fallen behind due to the disruptions in education COVID caused, funding free broadband for all students, increasing funding for community-run relief groups and service groups that are already doing the work and have the community’s trust (including NYCHA tenants’ associations - each should have their own pot of emergency funding money), and increasing funding for government agencies such as the Department for the Aging, who serve the population that was most vulnerable to the virus. We must expand our community hospital network, restoring beds we’ve lost, opening clinics in underserved neighborhoods, and ensuring equitable distribution of funding. The School Health Program is basically a community clinic, and should be funded as such. I will fight to expand the funding and staffing of these programs, since in some cases they are the only sources of medical attention children will receive. I will push to include school health programs as community-based care centers per the 1NYC plan, and increase their funding. We also need to build communities of care to provide mental health, nutrition and wellness services provided by culturally-responsive community practitioners. We must address food deserts by supporting partnerships to form community-run gardens, open air produce markets, food co-ops and other models which can provide jobs as well as quality food.

<b>Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.</b>

Quality, equitable education for all, support for small businesses and the arts, disability justice, inclusive public safety, climate justice and environmental issues, truly safe communities for all, and care for and inclusion of seniors.

<b>What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?</b>

I have spent most of my 22 years living in Astoria working to build a better, fairer, more inclusive, and greener community. I have organized with my neighbors and strangers to address critical issues around public health, government transparency, climate justice, food insecurity, education and mutual aid during my time here and especially in times of crisis (from Superstorm Sandy to, COVID-19 relief). Both personally and professionally, I have been extensively involved in the D22 community for many years in many capacities and areas. I am an inclusive leader with the proven capacity to build coalitions for change across the District and in this City.
Housing, zoning, and land use justice
For 10 years, I have served on Community Board 1 in Queens, where I have pushed for transparency and rigor as we discuss critical issues, particularly around housing and zoning. I have been an advocate for bike lanes and other sustainable infrastructure projects. Two years ago, I was appointed Chair of the Community Board Housing Committee because I had a vision for addressing affordable housing--which Community Board 1 identified as the number one issue facing our community. I asked for a Vice Chair who lives in NYCHA housing, bringing a much needed perspective to the Housing Committee. Under my watch, the Housing Committee brought in guest speakers who advocate for the homeless in order to dispel prejudices among Committee and Board members, and held forums in partnership with NYCHA Residents Associations to ensure perspectives and input from members of this community are proactively represented. I have led the charge to reject rezonings that will exacerbate gentrification, and push our elected officials to demand affordable housing that is truly affordable.
Youth empowerment and climate justice
Through my 24 years of work at Global Kids, including the past 11 as Executive Director, I have uplifted and supported youth organizing around many human rights issues, especially climate justice and environmental sustainability, recognizing that young people are the ones who will suffer most if we do not adopt radical measures to address climate change. In particular, I helped bring the weekly, youth-run Green Market to District 22, created and implemented a summer leadership and paid internship program focused on climate justice with Long Island City HS and William Cullen Bryant High School, and supported youth-led census outreach work for the 2020 Census. Many young people from our District 22 community were part of Global Kids’s successful climate education campaign which culminated in the New York City Council mandating climate education in New York City public schools. Under my watch, Global Kids has sent youth leaders to the United Nations Climate meetings, and to the UN Forum on Sustainability. I helped organized a paid energy justice fellowship for NYC High School students in conjunction with CUNY Law, and helped ensure that Global Kids youth leaders were deeply involved in the People’s Climate March and Climate Strike.

Food justice and mutual aid
At the height of the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020, I worked with a small team of Astorians to found Queens Feeds Hospitals/Frontline Foods Queens. We raised money to pay local restaurants to make and deliver daily meals to frontline workers at six Queens hospitals. We have delivered over 50,000 meals to date, and have now branched out to provide meals to food insecure communities across Western Queens (including NYCHA developments and food pantries).
In addition, I am a founding member of the Astoria Mutual Aid Network, which now has over 1,500 neighbors who have self identified in wanting to offer and accept support from one another. Through our mutual aid, we provide meals, groceries, assistance with housing issues, community building events, free community book fairs, a free store, and more.
Last fall, the gas at one of the buildings at Astoria Houses was turned off, and remained off for three months. Because I have been doing this work for years, I had a network of Astoria Houses colleagues. Together we built a weekly lunch program in front of the affected building - with food cooked by community members from across Astoria provided to Astoria Houses residents. We even provided takeaway containers so people could warm up the food in the microwave throughout the week.
My efforts to mobilize grassroots response to community needs has been longstanding and existed years before a formal mutual aid existed within Astoria. Immediately after Hurricane Sandy, during one of my many trips to bring supplies and sandwiches to residents there, I was told by a Rockaways resident that they were sick of cold food and just wanted a hot meal. I listened and quickly founded Astoria Cooks for the Rockaways. Over two months, I mobilized neighbors and strangers in Astoria to cook hot meals which we then took via caravan to outdoor sites in the Rockaways and set up guerilla catering. We served over 4000 meals in front of libraries, near public housing, and on sidewalks using my front stoop as our launching pad.
Education justice
I have worked with parents on myriad education issues, most notably the issue of elevated train noise at PS85Q, a Title 1 school which my own children attended. The train is roughly 30 feet from the school, and the noise was deafening. During the warm weather when the school’s windows were open, PS85 teachers had to stop their lessons every 2.5 to 5 minutes for roughly 2 minutes to wait for the subway to pass by. The decibel readings were at dangerous levels, and for decades, parents had a “there’s nothing we can do about it” attitude. We couldn’t move the elevated tracks or the school, but I helped organize parents anyway. We advocated for changes that could happen, and persuaded the MTA to replace the tracks and switches to mitigate noise levels,, obtained a $1 million electrical wiring upgrade for the school, and procured (through our local electeds) energy-efficient air conditioners. Now when warm weather came, PS85 teachers do not have to open the classroom windows and their instruction is not disrupted by noise.
Lastly, as PTA president at two District 22 schools, I helped fundraise and spearhead the development of a native plant and pollinator garden at one school, a children’s garden and science botanical program at another, and partnerships with such groups as The Hort, Greening Western Queens, and the Trust for Public Land. I have testified in the City Council on smaller class size, lobbied in Albany for fully funded schools, and rallied with teachers when budget cuts have been threatened.
In addition to my organizing as a parent, it has been critical to my tenure as an Executive Director to ensure my values carry through to young people outside my immediate family. Global Kids is an anti-racist educational organization that empowers youth from underserved communities. As such we use critical pedagogy, a human rights framework, restorative justice practices, and youth development principles in our work. We work as the lead CBO in six community schools, and 14 other high need schools in all five boroughs.

<b>The best advice ever shared with me was:</b>

Endorsements don’t matter. The people who live in the district do.

<b>What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?</b>

I have extensive positions on my website, but would love to answer any specific questions people have. Please reach out to me at info@electevie.com or 646-389-9493 to schedule some time to talk.