Representative Ritchie Torres is a fighter from the Bronx who has spent his entire life working for the community he calls home. Like many people in the South Bronx, poverty and struggle have never been abstractions to him, and he governs from a place of lived experience.
Ritchie’s mother single-handedly raised him, his twin brother, and his sister in a public-housing project. She paid the bills working minimum-wage jobs, which in the 1990s paid $4.25 an hour. While Ritchie grew up with mold, lead, leaks, and no reliable heat or hot water in the winter, he watched the government spend over $100 million dollars to build a golf course across the street for Donald Trump. In 2013, at the age of 25, Ritchie became New York City’s youngest elected official and the first openly L.G.B.T.Q. person elected to office in the Bronx.
There’s nothing more important to me than ensuring that every child in the South Bronx has a safe home, does not go hungry, and receives a good education. I am deeply concerned about how segregated our schools are. Even in New York City, we have an intensely segregated school system that is denying a generation of kids of color a fighting chance at a decent life. As a City Council Member, I introduced a bill to create an Office of School Diversity aimed at tackling deep segregation, and I will continue to fight for our children in Congress.
The educational crisis does not stop with our youngest students. The student debt crisis from higher education has grown to an unconscionable extent. Canceling student debt would relieve an unprecedented economic burden on working families, build a stronger bridge to the middle class, and fulfill the people’s right to an accessible, affordable education. I’m in favor of cancelling as much as $50,000 of student debt for federal student loan borrowers as well as extending the interest reduction on student loans as a form of pandemic relief. The cancellation of student debt would dramatically narrow the racial wealth gap, giving millions of families a fighting chance at long-term financial security.
Protecting Medicare is one of my highest priorities in Congress. Medicare serves our seniors and most vulnerable Americans, and Republicans have tried to gut this essential lifeline for decades. We need to empower Medicare to negotiate drug prices, which will help make essential prescription drugs affordable to all Americans.
I’m in favor of implementing a universal healthcare program, such as Medicare for All. This plan would not only expand Medicaid to all Americans, but it would also enhance Medicare coverage by adding dental, vision, prescription drugs, women’s reproductive health services, maternity and newborn care, long term services and more.
Proper health care shouldn’t just be limited to physical health. Throughout my life, I have struggled with my own mental health – and without proper treatment, I wouldn’t be alive today. I want for my constituents, and for every American, the same access to mental health treatment that transformed my life and sent me on a trajectory from dropping out of college at my lowest point to the United States Congress today. I’m advocating tirelessly for any measure that will guarantee mental health care access to anyone who needs it.
There is no issue more important to me than expanding access to safe and affordable housing. When I was growing up in the Bronx, public housing was a lifeline for my family. My mother struggled everyday to support her 3 children on $4.25 per hour, the minimum wage in the 1990s. I would not be where I am today without the stability affordable housing gave me and my family. I want to ensure every American, no matter their zip code, can say the same.
We need more affordable housing to tackle the homelessness crisis. Every day, I’m fighting for the development of more affordable housing, a universal housing voucher program, a sweeping reinvestment in our existing public housing infrastructure to address billions of dollars of capital needs, and building back our housing infrastructure better, faster, and cheaper. You can count on me to make sure the Bronx gets its fair share.
As a child of the Bronx who grew up in public housing, I was often too scared to come out of the closet in my youth. Now, as the first openly LGBTQ+ Afro-Latino Member of Congress, I feel the weight of history on my shoulders. I know firsthand the discrimination members of the LGBTQ+ community face, and am determined to make positive change for my community.
We are closer than ever before to realizing the full vision of equality in America, but we must continue to combat LGBTQ+ discrimination with federal action. Millions of Americans still live in fear of losing their jobs, homes, or livelihoods because of who they are and whom they love. My lived experience as a gay Black man from the Bronx motivates me to fight every day until we are fully equal in the eyes of the law.
I’m proud that my first bill to pass the House advances the fight for full equality for the LGBTQ+ community. It requires financial institutions to compile and maintain certain data on applications for credit from LGBTQ-owned businesses, which codifies the term “LGBTQ-owned business” into federal law. Collecting this data is crucial for identifying business development needs and opportunities for LGBTQ-owned businesses, which add over $1.7 trillion to the U.S. economy each year.
In the world’s wealthiest nation, poverty is a policy choice – not an inevitability. The continued public health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have laid bare the systemic inequities stemming from decades of racism, poverty, and economic inequality. Congress needs to commit to enacting policies that prioritize the needs of the 140 million people in the United States who are poor, low-income, or one emergency away from economic ruin. With the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is now more important than ever that Congress supports and uplifts our most vulnerable populations – children and their families.
The crisis of child poverty strikes close to home for me. I am committed to reforming and expanding the Child Tax Credit, which would slash child poverty in half. The National Academies of Sciences panel on child poverty found an enhanced Child Tax Credit to be the single most effective tool for reducing child poverty in America. In the South Bronx, 68 percent of children are deprived of the full benefit because their parents earn too little. We owe it to children and parents to make the Child Tax Credit work for them.
I’m fighting every day to pass legislation that ensures the enhanced and expanded Child Tax Credit is made permanent. 98 percent of children in the South Bronx will benefit from the expanded Child Tax Credit. This critical investment in our children will improve educational and economic outcomes for future generations and break the cycle of racially concentrated poverty.
In Congress, I am committed to ensuring that health, housing, schools, and jobs are viewed as fundamental rights for everyone. By radically distributing resources and reinvesting in social services, we can build a social safety net that will guarantee a better tomorrow for everyone
After the devastation and hardship New Yorkers experienced this past year, a post-COVID world cannot come soon enough. New York City risks becoming a shadow of its former self if we don’t make the right investments to get our economy back on track.
The dual crises of COVID-19 and systemic racism have magnified the economic inequality that plagues our country, and we can’t afford to return to the pre-pandemic status quo. We need to give hard working people a fighting chance at success.
As a member of the House Committee on Financial Services, I’m fighting every day to rebuild a more inclusive middle class. I’m in favor of increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, which would give millions of Americans a fighting chance at a better life by lifting people from poverty, narrowing racial pay gaps, and building a more equitable economy for everyone.
I’m also a strong supporter of the labor movement, which is our best hope to revitalize the middle class. Strengthening unions is a pivotal step towards mitigating growing income inequality and worker safety concerns. Congress needs to significantly expand the rights of workers to unionize and enhance protections for those whose efforts to unionize are impeded by their employers.
With an annual ridership of over 3.6 billion on buses and trains, public transportation is the lifeblood of New York City. Our city’s transit infrastructure is in desperate need of renewal – and local and state governments cannot do it alone. Revitalizing transit options towards a greener standard is one of the most effective actions we can take to improve public health outcomes, reduce carbon emissions, and tackle climate change head-on. With the help of the federal government, New York City can champion clean, renewable energy that will lay the groundwork for a greener future.
There is no larger symbol of environmental racism in the Bronx than the Cross Bronx Expressway, a dilapidated highway that has torn our neighborhoods apart and driven our asthma rates to the highest in New York City. I’m pushing for an overhaul of the Cross Bronx that will “cap” the highway, transforming portions of the roadway into green space that would be placed on 2.5 miles of the roadway that are below grade. Reimagining the Cross Bronx Expressway for the 21st century will curb pollution, improve public health outcomes, and promote a cleaner, safer environment for generations to come.
We owe a debt of gratitude to our nation’s veterans, who have put their lives on the line to protect our country. I am proud to represent nearly 40,000 veterans and their families who call the Bronx home. We must ensure that veterans receive world-class health care to meet their specific needs and that they have meaningful employment and educational opportunities. I’m particularly committed to eradicating veteran homelessness and addressing veterans’ mental health and well-being needs.