CAMPAIGNS
Guided by the Jemez Principles, our Organizing Campaigns are determined by issues that directly impact our local community. Throughout the history of our organization, some of these issues include Air Pollution caused by diesel vehicles, lack of access to fresh affordable food, heat island effect, traffic, lack of access to green spaces and the waterfront. Most recently, we have been impacted by the procurement of a significant amount of properties by Last Mile facilities, worsening already harmful conditions. Hunts Point is not only surrounded by highways, infrastructure limits the way we can get in, out and through our neighborhood.
As frontline members of the Steering and Organizing committees in NY Renews, we passed the Climate Leadership Community Protection Act in 2019. The CLCPA is the nation’s most aggressive climate law; setting legally binding emissions reductions standards to get NY completely off of fossil fuels by 2050, it also mandates that 40% of state climate and energy funding be invested in environmental justice communities. Hunts Point is not only surrounded by highways, infrastructure limits the way we can get in, out and through our neighborhood. More recently, we have worked together with other communities who, like us, are overburdened with the impacts of Last Mile facilities, have launched a campaign to regulate last-mile trucking facilities in New York City (NYC). The coalition is calling on the NYC City Planning Commission to pass a Zoning Resolution Text Amendment to mitigate the explosive growth of last-mile trucking facilities — warehouses where packages are sorted and sent out for distribution. As members of the PEAK Coalition, we are working together to end the long-standing pollution burden from power plants on the city’s most climate-vulnerable people. This coalition will be the first comprehensive effort in the US to reduce the negative and racially disproportionate health impacts of a city’s peaker plants by replacing them with renewable energy and storage solutions. In support of ElectrifyNY we are part of a statewide coalition of advocates for environmental justice, public transportation, social justice, and good jobs fighting for a clean, equitable electric transportation future for New York. Our work aims to improve the environment and public health outcomes for the communities most affected by the negative impacts of the transportation sector’s dependency on fossil fuel.
Specific youth programs include the comprehensive After School Program (ASP) for youth 1-8th grade, teen community leadership group A.C.T.I.O.N. (Activists Coming To Inform Our Neighborhood), the peer education Mind’s Empowered Project aimed at reducing HIV/STI and teen pregnancy, and arts-in-education programs including the International Center of Photography (ICP) at THE POINT and our social circus program Cirque de Vie.