NYC Mayor de Blasio visits with Queensbridge Houses Community Leaders

Today, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio visited with community leaders of the Queenbridge Public Housing Development Complex in Long Island City. He would hand out protective masks to local residents whilst walking about the pedestrian ways and paths. He would also visit the memorial of local Rapper Kiing Shooter who passed away earlier in the month.

It would be within the 696 Build Queensbridge Office that the rest of us would learn of the efforts of local leaders to help the community in the face of this health crisis. Amongst those present would be 696 Executive Director, K Bain; Queensbridge TA President, April Simpson; Councilmember, Van Brammer; Deputy Dir. of MOCJ’s Office of Neighborhood Safety, Eric Cumberbatch; Organizing Dir., Zone 126, Andre T. Stith; and CCD/696 Build Queensbridge PM Manager, Shyism “Himo” Bryant.

We thank these Community Leaders for all that they’ve done and are doing for the sake of the many New Yorkers living within their neighborhoods. This city is all one big community and what affects one corner, one block, one section affects us all. We should all be caring about our fellow New Yorkers. I commend them for their work and efforts.

Here is a video compilation of the afternoon’s activities including that which was spoken by the Mayor and these important community leaders. Following the video is a partial transcript featuring Mr. Bain’s words.

Mr. K Bain would be the first to speak:

“I think in the team itself, there are some stories of things we’ve experienced that I wanted to bring to your attention and share, very relevant to what’s happening. We’ve had staff members who’ve had to quarantine inside their apartments because their partner had tested positive. There are staff members who’ve lost loved ones due to COVID-19 related symptoms. So all of that we’ve experienced in our inner circle – and of course we represent 6 blocks of 96 buildings in Queensbridge where we know of at least 7 or 8 families who are still trying to find ways to grieve from losing loved ones to this pandemic.

So it’s something that we lived with experience near and dear to us and as we go out into (inaudible) and we need confidence we’re trying to be more and more cognizant and aware of the pain that people are having. I don’t know many situations where a community loses members of young, old, not so old to the elderly and there’s no comfortable situation to mourn and grieve.

When you add that added pressure on top of generations of poverty – underserved on all levels – and the frustration of the summer approaching without people being able to feel free to move around the city, it’s a lot.

So we look forward to playing a leadership role and addressing the need to raise awareness on the importance of social distancing – increase the education so people really understand what it means to put a mask on and step back and to be a little selfless in those ways and give up some things. How that can actually help us all. Again, the crisis management system, everywhere from the Bronx to Staten Island, we’ve been really racking our brain trying to figure out how to make an impact in this area. So we appreciate the opportunity to do that – and to grow on what we’ve been doing.”