Mosley Talks Minimum Wage, DREAM Act, And Affordable Housing Protections In 2015 State Of The District Address

The need to preserve and protect affordable housing in Brooklyn was a focal point of Assemblymember Walter Mosley’s 2015 State of the District address last night — specifically, what he says is a need for housing reform, to stop illegal evictions and foreclosures, and to protect rent regulated units by preserving and improving rent regulation laws.

“We have around one million rent-regulated apartments and 2.5 million people in need of them. If we continue to go down this pathway, we will lose community and become a brand,” Mosley said during a video interview with neighborhood documentarian Wilkie Cornelius, whose in-progress film, “Brooklyn De-Constructed,” includes analysis of the housing issue and larger changes in Brooklyn by local advocates, academics and elected officials.

“Where do we go from here,” Mosley asked, echoing his speech’s theme and the words of a Martin Luther King Jr. speech from August 16, 1967. “The past few months have taken us to places we haven’t seen in a very long time — with the deaths of Eric Garner, Akai Gurley, Detectives Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, and the unrest that followed — [and] we have to see where we need to go as a borough, city and state.”

The year 2014 also saw more positive developments, he said — among them the New York Safe Act addressing gun control in communities of color across the state and with stronger penalties for criminals, passing a women’s equality act, and funding of infrastructure state-wide to spur job growth.

“But it’s not enough to rest on these accomplishments,” Mosley added.

One of his goals for this year is about the minimum wage — “to allow individual municipalities to determine their own minimum wage scale because all work has worth.”

Another goal focuses on housing, specifically ensuring that rent regulation laws do not end in June. “On the line is the future of millions of people, determined between now and June,” he said.

Regarding immigration reform, Mosley expressed unequivocal support for the DREAM Act to be made law, in order to “give DREAMers the same opportunities we have. [Because] if we can put up signs in fields saying ‘Help Wanted’ to their parents, surely we can put a sign up saying ‘Welcome’ to their offspring.”

Higher education was also on his agenda, with Mosley stating that the $2.9 billion cuts from the budget in 2009 were only restored to the tune of $1.75 billion and more needs to be done.

Ending his address, Mosley declared that “if you think you saw something these past two years, you haven’t seen anything yet.”