Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Shahana Hanif

Shahana Hanif

  • What Advocates and Electeds Say Mayor Adams Should Be Doing Differently About the Asylum-Seeker Crisis

    Mayor Adams and others tour a HERRC (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    As the migrant asylum-seeker crisis continues to escalate, and another surge of arrivals has begun after a federal pandemic-era border policy expired last week, Mayor Eric Adams is taking increasingly desperate steps to ease the impact on New York City.

    While virtually everyone agrees that the federal and state governments should do more to help the city, critics say there are still several concrete measures the mayor has failed to

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  • City Council Members Question Mayor Adams' Decision to Create New Office for Asylum-Seeker Operations

    MOIA Commissioner Castro, center-left, with Mayor Adams & others (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    Earlier this month, Mayor Eric Adams announced the creation of a new office to handle the influx of tens of thousands of migrant asylum-seekers in the city. But, at a City Council budget hearing focused on immigration services that same day, March 7, administration officials offered barebones details about the new office’s structure and budget, and how it would interact with an existing mayoral office that is already dedicated to immigrant affairs and has been coordinating services for

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  • City Council Progressive Caucus Announces 2023 Legislative Agenda Focused on Solitary Confinement, Affordable Housing, Police Accountability, & More

    City Council Progressive Caucus Co-Chairs Hanif & Restler (photo: John McCarten/NYC Council)


    The New York City Council’s Progressive Caucus is announcing its legislative agenda for 2023 on Thursday, pursuing 20 bills in seven categories on criminal justice reform, police transparency, housing affordability, public banking, waste and emissions reduction, and gig worker benefits. 

    The Progressive Caucus’ membership, all Democrats, is the largest it has ever been in the 51-member City Council, with 35 members in its ranks, including Speaker Adrienne Adams as an ex-officio member, up from 12

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  • How Could the City Council Cut Affordable Housing in Gowanus?

    Housing construction (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    If you listen to progressives in New York City talk, you'd think they're focused on addressing our worsening housing crisis. Endless rally cries for tenant protection and increasing affordability make up the bulk of their campaign promises and slogans.

    And they would be right to — everyone, from democratic socialists to President Biden agree housing production is a problem. Over half a million units are needed by 2030, according to a...

  • New City Budget Incrementally Expands Composting Programs as Council Considers Citywide Mandate

    Community composting (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


    When Mayor Eric Adams was running for City Hall, he pledged to expand the city’s incipient residential curbside composting program. But despite a push for more by some City Council members, the recently approved $101 billion budget for next fiscal year, beginning July 1, only marginally increases funding for other composting programs while halting the promised expansion of residential curbside composting. 

    The city’s voluntary curbside composting program has moved forward in fits and starts. Organics account for about a third of

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  • Adams Leaves $25 Million City Council Request for Implementing Noncitizen Voting Out of Updated Budget

    A rally for Our City Our Vote (photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council)


    The New York City Council called on Mayor Eric Adams to provide $25 million in his latest budget plan to implement the city’s noncitizen voting law, which went into effect in January. But the mayor’s $99.7 billion executive budget for the 2023 fiscal year, released last month, did not include that

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  • ‘When we line up behind issues they’re going to get over the finish line’: City Council Progressive Caucus Co-Chairs on Priorities and Positioning

    Lincoln Restler & Shahana Hanif (photos: John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit)


    The newly-seated 51-member New York City Council has a particularly large progressive wing, with a whopping 34 members, including Speaker Adrienne Adams, signing up for the Progressive Caucus. That caucus, which seeks to pull the Council leftward and is already acting as a counterweight to a more moderate mayor, especially on policing issues, is led by co-chairs Shahana Hanif and Lincoln Restler, two Brooklyn Democrats selected by their fellow caucus members.

    City Council Pushes for $25 Million in Next Budget for Implementation of Noncitizen Voting

    Then-Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez leads a rally for noncitizen voting (photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council Media Unit)


    In January, the “Our City, Our Vote” law went into effect, allowing hundreds of thousands of noncitizens in New York City to vote in municipal elections. While there’s many months until they’ll be able to cast their votes, the New York City Council wants city officials and election administrators to be well prepared and conduct outreach to raise awareness, and is calling for $25 million in the next city budget to fund the implementation of the law.

    The new ...

  • Max Politics Podcast: City Council Progressive Caucus Chairs Shahana Hanif & Lincoln Restler

    City Council Members Shahana Hanif, left, and Lincoln Restler are co-chairs of the Council's Progressive Caucus


    April 13, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: City Council Progressive Caucus Chairs Shahana Hanif & Lincoln Restler

    New York City Council Progressive Caucus Co-Chairs Shahana Hanif and Lincoln Restler joined the show to discuss the formation of the caucus in the new class of City Council members, its membership and priorities, and their stances on a number of key issues. 

    Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter ...

  • Funding for Adult Literacy and Other Immigrant Services To Be Contested in City Budget Negotiations

    Council Member Shahana Hanif (photo: @ShahanaFromBK)


    How city government is addressing the needs of immigrant communities is shaping up to be one of several key issues as Mayor Eric Adams and the New York City Council negotiate the next city budget, due by the July 1 start of the new city fiscal year.

    Among a series of March hearings held by the Council on Mayor Adams’ $98.5 billion preliminary budget plan, representatives from the Mayor’s Office on Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) and advocates appeared before Council members to

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  • In the Face of Anti-Asian Violence, We Want Budget Justice

    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

    A remembrance for Michelle Alyssa Go (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    Over Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, 40-year-old Michelle Alyssa Go was pushed from the Times Square subway platform to her death. This tragedy follows a year that saw a 361% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes and came less than two weeks after ...

  • Civic Leadership Institute Increasingly Well-Represented in City Politics

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    Rep. Ritchie Torres (photo: Communications CoroNewYork)


    When the next session of the City Council begins in January, multiple seats will be filled by alumni from the Coro New York Leadership Center, a local organization playing a key role bringing new leaders into city government.

    The work of the nearly 80-year-old nonprofit leadership institute is also evident given Coro’s representation on Mayor-elect Eric Adams’ transition committee. Coro’s mission consists of training emerging NYC leaders so that “All individuals,

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  • In Brooklyn Political Launching Pad, Another Highly Competitive Council Race

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    Activists, Council Member Brad Lander & others (photo: John McCarten.City Council)


    With voting underway in this month’s primary elections, including for almost all 51 City Council seats, including about three dozen that are “open” due to term limits, crowded fields of candidates are pushing for every vote.

    The competition is especially hot, if civil, in Brooklyn’s 39th City Council District, one of the most politically-active areas in the city, with some of the highest voter turnout rates, and the home district of Mayor Bill de

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  • Composting the Patriarchy: A Feminist Green New Deal for Sanitation

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    Shahana Hanif (photo: @ShahanaFromBK)


    Trash is too often an afterthought. Voters and friends pause when I share my love for recycling, composting, and colorful trash cans. But, as a climate champion endorsed by Sunrise NYC, Resilience PAC, TREEage NYC, and NYC’s chapter of Sierra Club, I know that waste equity is critical to achieving New York City’s climate resiliency goals.

    We need to stop thinking of waste as ‘trash.’ Waste is valuable material; compost is nutritious food for our community gardens’ soil. Over one third of New York City’s waste

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