For Sampson Challenger Sean Henry, Tackling Homelessness Is Personal
State Senate candidate Sean Henry is putting issues of homelessness and poverty at the center of his campaign to unseat Senator John Sampson. For Henry it’s a personal battle, having emerged from homelessness in a story that could have been penned by Horation Alger.
The East New York resident was profiled by DNAinfo earlier this week, reflecting on his own history of homelessness growing up in Chicago.
His parents split up in the 1980s and he was left in the care of his unemployed single mother. They shuffled between the homes of family members, struggled to put food on the table, and eventually landed in homeless shelters.
Throughout that, Henry worked his way through one of Chicago’s leading high schools, joined ROTC and enlisted in the Army Reserve. With help from the G.I. Bill he went on to obtain an undergraduate degree and then a graduate degree at NYU.
He began working for the city’s Department of Homeless Services, advocating for those whose challenges he knew better than most.
From the profile:
If elected, Henry said he wants to fight to eradicate homelessness, not just build new shelters in neighborhoods like East New York.
“We have a record amount of people in shelters and we have to get them out, but we have to get them out long term,” Henry said.
Rather than spend money to house families in shelters, city and state agencies should instead spend money on resources to keep them in their homes, like social workers and housing attorneys, he said.
“We’re spending the money anyway, if they’re going to a shelter,” Henry said. “So why not spend much less and keep families in their home?”
Henry also emphasizes education and more resources to the area’s impoverished schools, as well as fighting for affordable housing.
Henry blasts Sampson’s inability to represent the district while being mired in legal troubles. The pol is facing charges for allegedly stealing more than $400,000 from the sale of foreclosed homes to finance a political campaign, as well as separate charges for lying to the FBI about a liquor store he owned.
The charges have apparently kept Sampson busy. During the legislative session this year, he uttered just one word and introduced no legislation. And Henry said Sampson has utterly failed to obtain Superstorm Sandy recovery funds to hard-hit Canarsie.
“I’m sorry for John,” Henry told DNAinfo. “But he just has too many legal issues and can’t do the job.”
Check out the full profile.