By: Richard Melouse
When a borough president in New York City goes on a rant, it’s news – and usually portends some major action.
Eric Adams, the Brooklyn Borough President, had lots to say when speaking at the launch of a new senior center for poor and LGBT residents. The facility sits on land that belongs to the New York City Housing Authority.
“I can’t celebrate a building that is not going to be inclusive. That is not who I am. Those who know me, they know who I am. And I’m unapologetic about who I am,” Adams said, according to the New York Post. “Because if you have a body of people over there that feels as though this place here is not for them — we’re going to have incidents in this community that will be disruptive. And I don’t want that to happen. I didn’t put on a vest for 22 years to protect the children and families of this city to watch us be divided.”
“It’s not clear exactly what the 2021 mayoral hopeful meant when he claimed the new Stonewall House building at Fort Greene’s Ingersoll Houses is not inclusive,” the Post noted (see the full story at https://nypost.com/2019/12/25/brooklyn-borough-president-eric-adams-goes-on-bizarre-rant-at-affordable-housing-opening/). More than three-quarters — 77 percent — of the new residents are African American, Latino or Asian. Each tenant in the new building is at least 62 years old and makes less than $40,000 a year. More than a third of the building’s new apartments will be filled by NYCHA tenants — a quarter of its 145 units are reserved for once-homeless New Yorkers.”
Grace Bonilla, who heads the city’s Human Resources Administration, said this after Adams spoke, reported the Post’s Nolan Hicks: “I can’t follow the Borough President without addressing what he had to say. Our hope is that every single client has a place like this to live in, to actually talk to the people that are going to get a key and say ‘you no longer have to be homeless… So, I echo what the Borough President said, we do have more to do, but I do want to celebrate today because today is an accomplishment.”
According to GayCityNews.com, Adams also said,
“I don’t want to see beautiful floors like this and lead paint over there. I don’t want to see rodents over there and comfort here.”
“The borough president segued from his comments about diversity into a discussion about slavery,” the web site added. “I think about Frederick Douglass and the conversation about fighting for the independence of America,” Adams said. “He said ‘the arrogance of that those want me to fight for independence when I’m still a slave.’ I can’t celebrate a building that is not inclusive.”
