Young people are the vital engine of this bustling city. Here, we devote our lives to make New York City the diverse and exciting city known around the world as “the city that never sleeps”. However, in the last few years we are increasingly facing up to the reality that this city is harder and harder for us to live, work, study and thrive in. We have to stay far away for cheaper rents, spend hours a day back and forth from our homes to our classes and jobs, and constantly worry whether the next month we will be able to make rent. Some of us have to depend on our families for a roof over our heads, and see the struggles our loved ones endure to support us. Those of us who grew up here are being forced out of the communities that we love, but are unaffordable to live. Newcomers have to be grateful for high-rent apartments in increasingly cramped and slum-like conditions. Is this what we envision as the city we love?

We ask ourselves: do we allow our homes and communities to be destroyed by policies that benefit luxury developers? Or are we able to take a stand and announce: "we are here to stay"? If we want to keep our homes and communities, we need zoning policies that make that a reality by limiting the heights of new developments and requiring 100% truly affordable housing on public lands that reflect the income level of the communities. However, that’s not what the City is doing. The City government has supported displacement of communities from Harlem and Bed-Stuy to Williamsburg and the Lower East Side through its racist, pro-developer rezoning plans. As a result, we have seen explosions of high-costs and luxury developments that devastated our historically low-income communities of color and pushed people further and further away from the center of the city. We all suffer from the impact of displacement, and so we demand protection! Instead of rezoning to encourage luxury development, we want community-led rezoning plans to protect all of us across the city from displacement!

Right now, the Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, is pushing forward with his rezoning plans for neighborhoods across the city to encourage luxury development. He says that these rezoning plans will create “affordable housing”, but we have seen that they only create high-rent apartments for the profits of the developers and destroy the low-income housing in our neighborhoods. Furthermore, the Mayor is perpetuating the long history of racism in New York City by targeting majority communities of color for displacement. The Mayor is up for re-election in 2017, but we feel that we should not wait until then to get rid of the “gentrifier-in-chief”. That’s why we are telling Mayor de Blasio to step down now!

This is what the People First Campaign is about. If we want to have a city to live and thrive in we need to organize for policies that serve us, and all working people in the city. We cannot stand by and let politicians benefit from promoting racism and destruction of our communities. It’s about taking control of our lives and our communities. It puts people first, not profits. Join us! You can follow us and share our material on social media, and message us if you want to plan and grow the People First campaign together.

Email: youthagainst.displacement@gmail.com

Facebook: @YouthAgainstDisplacement

Instagram: @youth_against_displacement