Our Platform

Invest in our youth 👶

- Expand Pre-K & child care for universal coverage, provide new parents with material support like formula & diapers
- Expand & create free youth programming for arts, nighttime all-ages shows and activities, recreation, literacy, and vocational training for healthy jobs
- Support the school district to control failing schools & facilities that need upgrades rather than consolidation or closure
- Fund capital projects for maintenance and upgrades to public schools and libraries
- A guaranteed meal and bed for every child - eliminate childhood hunger with expanded food services and financial assistance, find housing for any child and their family who are unhoused or at risk of eviction
- Expand Youth UBI program & introduce city charter amendment to dedicate funding
- Invest in repairing & upgrading existing playgrounds, create new amenities like splash pads
- Baby bonds program
- Reclaim empty lots and blighted properties for community ownership, public art spaces, and municipal or community resources (gardens, parks, solar microgrids, water storage)
- Develop next Master Plan for 2030-2050 with a focus on adapting to sea level rise and extreme weather

Livable & Safe Neighborhoods 🏡

- Increase fortified roof grants
- Expand renter protections, rental assistance, and affordable housing mortgage assistance
- Modify zoning & funding for creating more affordable housing & social housing
- Increase street lighting & traffic mitigation to eliminate pedestrian/cyclist deaths
- Create a Community Police Accountability Council with oversight power
- Expand gun violence prevention and weapon safety programming available for free
- Significantly expand solar collection and retention on City owned properties and public land
- Solar, drainage & water retention zoning requirements for new development
- Drastically restrict private jet travel (MSY and Lakefront) & require initiatives to reduce emissions (Port of New Orleans)
- Create free community health clinics in areas with disproportionately low life expectancies, with a focus on preventative care
- Encourage and help facilitate tenant union organizing
- Create a rental registry for people looking to rent & landlords looking for tenants instead of short-term rentals
- Reclaim streets to parks, public squares, bike/pedestrian traffic, merchant areas (parklets)
- Codify tax assessments to stop using sales chasing tactics and fairly assess lots in line with other parishes
- Strengthen protections against discriminatory practices for housing, particularly for LGBTQ+ people and immigrants
- Ensure Renewable & Clean Portfolio Standard enforces no carbon-emitting from Entergy by 2050
- Improve our digital infrastructure and fund technology education

Improve Quality of Life 🚧

- Restore 2-day garbage collection
- Regulate contracted road work & invest in municipal road work capabilities to stop never-ending construction
- Clean air and reduced heat maps
- Improve rainwater management to curb street flooding
- Expand public transit
- Work towards centralized planning of all road work, utility work, and other digs with transparent dashboards, community oversight, and reports available to the public
- Explore the creation of a municipal bank to invest in housing, public projects, and worker-owned cooperatives/businesses owned by historically oppressed people

Dignity for All ❤️

- Act against reactionary legislation and judicial rulings that are harmful to our community
- Make New Orleans a sanctuary city for immigrants, abortion access, and LGBTQ+ healthcare
- Encourage and help facilitate workplace and tenant union organizing
- Rollback criminalization targeting the unhoused & work to eliminate homelessness
- Ban solitary confinement & end cash bail
- Continue to decrease the bed cap on the prison population to under 1,000
- Create crisis-stabilization centers for mental health and substance crises
- Basic income for teenagers, those on fixed income, and on disability
- Establish a reparations program for the descendants of enslaved people and victims of anti-Black racism and Jim Crow laws
- Amend the home rule charter for City to divest from banks and companies that participate in apartheid and war crimes and ban the purchase of bonds in foreign states committing human rights violations
- Expand support for elderly people, especially the ones living alone, with a focus on community-based solutions like youth/elder programs and storm evacuation service
- Land back for indigenous people
- No fare public transit for youth and workers in the city
- Decriminalize sex work
- Public facing registry of employers who violate labor violations that will be prevented from obtaining city contracts or participate in city job fairs
- Reclaim tax dollars from New Orleans & Co. for hospitality worker & musician funds
- Make non-profits pay their fair share on properties, particularly vacant lots & large buildings

Expand Democracy & Combat Corruption 🗳️

- Expand oversight & transparency on public agencies like HANO, Sewerage & Water Board, Civil Service Commission, City Planning Commission, and more
- Create a participatory budget so the public can vote on how their tax dollars are spent
- Constituent portal for increased engagement, frequent outreach with those unable to use the portal
- Regular virtual sessions with residents & workers in the district
- Committed to vote no on deferring for items that have a volume of public input
- District Days of Service - precinct engagement & small public events to bring people together & improve communities together
- Regular audits of contact with entities, people & organizations made publicly available
- Expand union density by helping workers organize their workplaces & establish a District A Worker Council to represent workplaces across the district
- All City agencies’ agendas, meeting minutes, and recordings made easily available to the public, with advance notice given to residents
- Move parochial election day to presidential election day for increased voter turnout
- Amend Master Plan to increase democratic requirements for neighborhood associations & the neighborhood participation program
- City departments that have a requested budget exceeding 15% of the total budget will require an audit
- Simplify zoning, consolidate/eliminate various zoning districts
- Root out corruption and reform boards and commissions that utilize political appointees to make them recallable, and nominate working class people to vacancies
- Create publicly funded local elections to give working class people a fair shot at running for office
- To the fullest extent of state and federal law, remove all barriers for residents being able to vote

Stop Expensive Utilities 🔌

- Utility debt forgiveness since COVID-19
- Ban residential shutoffs
- No more utility rate increases
- Ensure Entergy New Orleans' profits don’t exceed the legal requirement
- Work towards municipalizing Entergy New Orleans into a publicly owned utility

What do the people in New Orleans need?

Need to afford living in New Orleans

- Utility bills at national average (cost of living, housing)
- Rent / mortgages that are affordable with pay (cost of living, housing)
- Affordable or free childcare (youth, cost of living, jobs)
- Better pay/Close wage gaps (cost of living, jobs, quality of life)
- Access to no-fee banking (cost of living, youth, immigration)
- Affordable groceries/Get rid of food deserts (public health, cost of living, quality of life)
- Real opportunity for young people to thrive (youth, jobs, education, quality of life)
- Better public schools (youth, education)

Need to feel safe & healthy living in New Orleans

- Safe housing (housing, public health)
- Stop marginalizing students (youth, education, accessibility, LGBTQ+, immigration)
- Roads that are safe to travel on for all conveyance (quality of life, infrastructure, accessibility)
- An end to gun violence (public safety, quality of life, youth, public health)
- Safety without more police/jails/surveillance (public safety, quality of life, public health, youth, immigration)
- Reduce heat maps (environment, quality of life, public health)
- Less flooding (infrastructure, quality of life, environment, housing)
- A hardened infrastructure against storms & heat (environment, housing, utilities, quality of life, public health, jobs)
- Better health care (public health, cost of living, accessibility, youth)
- Access to abortion care (public health, cost of living, youth)
- Two trash pickups a week, Recycling, Composting (infrastructure, quality of life, environment, public health, jobs)

This initial platform has been developed based on feedback from community members and leaders on the issues that affect them most, with solutions that have been locally developed collectively and collaboratively and research and implemented in other parts of the world. If something that matters to you is not reflected on this platform, tell us what matters to you by clicking here.