All in a Day’s Work: Selfies with the Mayor & Community Outreach

Last Wednesday, we joined Mayor Bill de Blasio, Housing Recovery Office Director Amy Peterson, Council Members Donovan Richards and Mark Treyger, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, Faith in New York, the Alliance for a Just Rebuilding, and many more partners, including City agencies and local non-profits, at the Sandy Recovery Opportunity and Resource Fair in Far Rockaway. The Fair was held in order to connect local residents to employment opportunities as the City works to build a stronger, more resilient Rockaway. Over 700 attendees learned about career opportunities, job trainings, union apprenticeships, and recovery and resiliency resources.

My colleague Sara Martin and I were on site to speak with homeowners about the free, high-quality housing counseling and legal services available to them through our network of 36 partner organizations located across the city. We also introduced homeowners in attendance to FloodHelpNY.org, a website we developed to help New Yorkers learn about about flood insurance and their flood risk. We were also excited to find lots of interested readers of our new report, Rising Tides, Rising Costs, about the major challenges that flood insurance and climate change pose for keeping housing affordable in New York’s flood-prone neighborhoods.

And, last but not least, I was also able to snag a selfie with Mayor de Blasio (!) who told us to “keep up the good work.” Not a bad day!

If you have an upcoming event and would like us to be there to share information on foreclosure prevention, recovery and resiliency work, and/or affordable homeownership, we’d love to come! You can reach me at 646-237-5917 or tonya.rapley@cnycn.org.