Make the Road New York

Our goals are to build the power of Latino and working class communities to achieve dignity and justice through organizing, policy innovation, transformative education, and survival services. We integrate adult and youth education, workforce development, and legal and support services in a holistic approach to improving the lives of low-income, mostly immigrant New Yorkers.

We build on our large and deep connection with the immigrant community to effectively advocate for solutions to the most urgent needs affecting them. Few organizations can be highly successful at both the provision of services and the policy and advocacy needed to effect major changes. MRNY accomplishes these by integrating community organizing and policy innovation with service provision and transformative education. We effectively meet the immediate needs of entire families with services provided by high caliber attorneys, service providers, and teachers. This creates a sense of support and frees people up to participate in campaigns to tackle the broader systemic issues impacting our members. We engage in deep and long-term leadership development - for example, helping young people to get into and stay in college while they also learn to run a campaign to stop abusive policing. Our model of community organizing provides dozens of opportunities each week for members to plan events, facilitate meetings, serve as spokespeople with the media, design and conduct surveys to collect reliable data on a campaign issue, and think strategically about who has the power to fix a problem we seek to fix, and what kind of pressure or incentive we can deploy to motivate that powerful actor to take the action necessary. Finally, having an in-house team of lawyers and advocates who are technically expert and deeply imbedded in and accountable to our membership enables us to run sophisticated and effective campaigns that layer multiple strategies.

Our success lies in the expertise and dedication of our staff, and the member-led approach to our work. Our staff has not only vast experience and qualifications in their fields, but most of them also have the life experience that allows them to relate with our members' issues. Our members, Board of Directors, and staff are all representative of the low-income, communities of color within which we work.

Our teams come with varied capabilities:
MRNY’s Adult Education team is made up of experienced professionals who bring over five years of teaching experience to MRNY, and over half have ten to thirty years of teaching experience. Additionally, the majority has a variety of degrees and certifications in ESL instruction, adult education or secondary education. Our legal department includes 20 attorneys and advocates divided into three specialty teams which together represent approximately 2,500 low-income families every year. Each team also partners closely with our organizers to draft legislation, design policy and provide technical support for our organizing campaigns. MRNY’s in-house legal team partners with our organizers and members to identify the kinds of regulatory and legislative reform that are enforceable and thus concretely impact the lives of our members and all of the low-income or vulnerable communities that overlap with our membership base. Our housing and public benefits team helps families access $10 million annually in unlawfully withheld benefits and wages, and works to halt evictions, protect tenants’ rights to stabilized rents and repairs and connect people to food stamps and other benefits. Our employment and immigration team has collected millions of dollars in unpaid wages, and represents workers in workers compensation, unemployment insurance, discrimination and labor law cases. The team also helps immigrants become citizens when they are eligible and works to stop deportation from tearing families apart. The historic new New York City law to guarantee paid sick days is based on a policy drafted by this team. Our health team connects people to health insurance and care, fights unlawful refusals by insurers to cover treatment and negotiates the elimination or reduction of debilitating hospital bills. We are the leading voice for immigrant New Yorkers in the city and state level health care policy and regulatory debates.

Another demonstration of our capabilities lies within the power of our members. MRNY’s (primarily Latino/a) members pay dues to support the organization, vote to elect our Board of Directors, and must themselves constitute a majority of our Board. Members also lead the organization through direct democracy at our thirteen weekly organizing committee meetings, monthly leadership team meetings and our quarterly membership meetings. Our Board of Directors is very involved in the day-to-day work of our organizing committees, our full membership meetings, and in supervising the work of senior staff.

Consider these highlights from the past 12 months:
After Hurricane Sandy, in Staten Island and Long Island, MRNY helped 2,000 families in crisis with emergency basics, small grants, and a full range of legal services and aid applications support. Since the storm, we have prepared two in-depth studies revealing gaps in Sandy recovery services; helped form a coalition to meet the needs of low income and immigrant communities; and launched the Back Home, Back to Work program to connect impacted workers (more than 620 so far) to good jobs and safety training in mold remediation for thousands of homes. We’re also working with the City to design an unprecedented long-term housing plan for displaced immigrants ineligible for FEMA aid. (Read more in the enclosed card about MRNY’s comprehensive services to Sandy victims like Florencia Olea)

This June, after a four-year campaign led by courageous workers and small business members, New York City is now the largest city in the U.S. to ensure paid sick days for more than one million workers. NYC workers will no longer risk losing their jobs for taking a sick day and all of us will be healthier for it.

We also celebrated two other historic developments for New York workers. Through our car wash campaign, workers won two strikes and the first two union contracts east of Los Angeles. And, after one year organizing through our labor-community-faith campaign, we are proud that New York State has taken action to increase the minimum wage to $9 per hour. Over the next three years, 1.5 million workers will see $2 billion added to their paychecks.

Since DACA took effect last August to give young immigrants new legal protections and work permits, MRNY has trained 2,600 young people and their families and provided full legal services to over 800 DACA applicants. As part of DACA outreach, MRNY also identified and helped hundreds apply for more permanent forms of immigration relief. (Read more about Pamela Dominguez, a DACA recipient and youth volunteer, in the enclosed card.)

In response to MRNY’s campaign, the City passed two new laws this March to stop federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement from using NYC’s criminal justice system to tear apart thousands of families through overly aggressive, indiscriminate deportations. With this move, NYC has saved millions of taxpayer dollars and sent Washington a clear message that tearing apart immigrant families is bad policy.

As a result of our efforts, Suffolk and Nassau Counties issued executive orders to ensure that Long Islanders with limited English proficiency receive interpretation and translation services in their interactions with county government. Suffolk County’s order was issued in November 2012 and Nassau County’s was issued in August 2013.