Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso delivered his second State of the Borough Address on Wednesday night, highlighting his office’s accomplishments in the past year, as well as new initiatives for 2024.
Reynoso, borough president since 2022, spoke to the hundreds of fellow elected officials, community board leaders and Brooklynites at New York City College of Technology in Downtown Brooklyn on March 13.
The former Council Member lauded the success of his maternal health initiative, which saw him invest the entirety of his office’s $45 million capital budget to three public hospitals in Brooklyn to improve pregnancy and birth outcomes.
Reynoso also hailed the release of his comprehensive plan in October, a 201-page document outlining issues of housing and public health inequity throughout Brooklyn following a year of data aggregation.
While congratulating his team and fellow elected officials for their hard work over the last 12 months, Reynoso also emphasized how much work still needs to be done.
“Homelessness in New York City has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression,” he told the crowd. “The city’s rate for processing food stamps is the lowest it’s been since 2006, and when it comes to cash assistance, the situation is even worse. The city processed just 28.8% of cash assistance applications on time, down from 82.3% the year before. Add to that the fact that the average timeline for repairing a single vacant NYCHA unit has surged to 370 days, nearly 5 times longer than it took to make the repairs in 2019.”
In addition to the burgeoning housing crisis, Reynoso also zeroed in on the effects of New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ budget cuts on programs citywide, like the slashing of Sunday — and potentially Saturday — library services at New York Public Libraries, and on NYC public schools.
These budget cuts, Reynoso said, are contributing to the steadily rising occurance of hate crimes throughout NYC.
“When we need our schools to be their most stable, their strongest,” he said. “Hate is festering in this city; Anti-Asian hate, Islamophobia and antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia. And the only thing that will make a real difference in the long run are the institutions that teach empathy, integrity, and understanding. But when we need our centers of learning the most, we have to fight to get them off the chopping block. There really couldn’t be a worse time.”
These challenges, Reynoso explained, are occurring across the Big Apple as New York City continues to face a migrant crisis, with over 180,000 people seeking refuge in the city over the past two years with little to no social safety nets in place.
In order to meet the needs of both lifelong Brooklynites and those who had just moved here, Reynoso said his office needed to restore Borough Hall as a service-based institution — echoing previous announcements of funding reallocation — and announced that his hallowed halls on Joralemon Street will now operate an Asylum Application Help Center.
“By the time we’re fully up and running, we’re hoping to hit 45 appointments every day, starting with work authorizations and shifting wherever we’re needed and however we can be most helpful,” said Reynoso. “Because we believe in being a good neighbor.”
With that in mind, the beep said he’s teaming up with Council Member Restler, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, and WXY Studio to help improve Columbus Park and the surrounding area right outside of Borough Hall.
In order to prioritize issues of housing and homelessness, healthcare inequity, climate change and economic instability, Reynoso said it was imperative that Brooklyn gets “back to basics.”
“I love New York, I love Brooklyn, and I refuse to accept a scarcity mindset — especially in the face of adversity,” he said. “It’s time to return to basic, and in Brooklyn, that means never giving up, never making excuses, and never abandoning our neighbors.”
Fellow elected officials also took to the stage to speak to Reynoso’s capability not only to continue to uplift and advocate for Brooklynites, but to make the borough the very best it can be.
“I like to work with Antonio Reynoso because he knows that even while diversifying our leadership, Black and Brown people were either being displaced or had to leave because they couldn’t afford to stay here,” Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said. “He understands that if you are going to pray for the hostages in Gaza, you have to pray for the people in Gaza. He understands that if Black women are dying giving birth at the rates that they are, we all have to be concerned.”
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander commended Reynoso’s leadership and his dedication to his constituents.
“You can see in his leadership that that’s not just the past of Brooklyn, that is the present and future of Brooklyn,” Lander said. “If we fight for a place where everyone is genuinely equal, has real opportunities for affordable housing and home ownership, have real equality in healthcare, understand that culture is something that people bring with them and make together and that everybody rises. That is what it means to spread love — it’s the Brooklyn way and that is why I am thrilled to call myself a resident of the borough with the best borough president.”
