Kingston resident Pedro Coc Xol is fighting to keep a roof over his head while battling an unforgiving landlord. Marvin Mayfield left Rikers Island four years ago and began his struggle against the systemic barriers that kept him and his peers from reintegrating into society. Laura Nordstrom, who’s running for Common Council this year, spat venom at a healthcare system which almost made it unaffordable to save her infant son's life.

Unjust evictions, mass incarceration and the lack of universal healthcare torment many and ruin lives. Earlier this week, Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson, a group which says it works against social systems that oppress underserved communities, held a rally at Academy Green in Kingston to offer a solution. They praised the “Compassionate New York” agenda as the first legislative step in the right direction.

Coc Xol, who was born in Guatemala, has lived in Kingston for 15 years with his wife, two children and his two brothers-in-law, who have two kids of their own. His brothers-in-law recently immigrated to the states and are learning English while trying to support their family. Coc Xol said he was glad he had the experience to ease his relatives’ transition, but his arguments with his landlord could put the family plan into jeopardy.

“I don’t want any problems,” he said. “I just want a safe place to live for my family.”

After signing the lease to his current apartment, Coc Xol said his landlord tried to hike the rent from $1,500 to $1,600 after he felt that the initial agreement wasn’t enough. The landlord also demanded that the family pay the water bill, even though it wasn’t specified in the lease. Coc Xol says the landlord has refused to provide him with a copy of the lease or the extra bills since then. On top of that, he said, the landlord locked his family out of the basement which held food and tools that Coc Xol needs for his construction job.

He lives in constant fear of being removed from his home and not knowing where to go next. “Passing good-cause eviction would be life-changing for me and my family,” Coc Xol said. “With it we would not have to live with fear.”

According to a fact sheet given out at the press conference, 1.3 million households are at risk of eviction on May 1, when the state’s eviction ban is lifted. Evictions in New York cost upwards of $1.6 billion each year, according to the Cost of Eviction calculator, created by the Innovation for Justice Program at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.

The agenda proposes “good-cause eviction” as a solution. This would give tenants, regardless of their immigration status, the right to renew their lease and would limit the spike in their rent based on the weighted average of real estate trends. This would protect renters from landlords looking to price them out of their space based on housing trends, like the influx of new residents to Kingston, or throwing tenants out because of personal grievances.

Real reintegration

At just 16 years old, Marvin Mayfield made a mistake in school when he snuck into a classroom to vandalize it. If you have ever seen the inside of a bathroom stall at any public school, you know the act isn’t uncommon. But in this case the police were called, and Mayfield soon found himself with a burglary charge on his record. At 21, Mayfield was arrested for burglary again, but his youthful misstep meant the courts showed him no mercy. He faced $10,000 bail, which he had no way of paying, and soon found himself at Rikers Island. After enduring 11 months of beatings and assaults, he was on the verge of a breakdown. When the courts offered to release him if he pleaded guilty, he took the deal. It was his only way out.

He began advocating for fair treatment of inmates, both during and after incarceration, as soon as he got out. Mayfield now works as an organizer for the Center for Community Alternatives, which fights against the same issues that the Compassionate New York agenda aims to tackle.

“We live in a state where harsh sentences are handed out like water,” Mayfield said, brimming with passion. “People who have been incarcerated for decades are being punished long after punishments have an effect on changing a person’s behavior.”

He said the stigma of being an “ex-con” stays with the previously incarcerated. That makes it hard to get jobs, find housing and be respected by the general public. Mayfield added that the cost of court, parole and other legal fees bar previously incarcerated people from providing themselves with the bare basics.

Prison conditions during the pandemic were dire: over 6,300 incarcerated people in New York contracted COVID-19, 20 percent of all inmates in state prison, according to the agenda fact sheet. Incarceration’s price is steep: New York spends roughly $1.8 billion annually on corrections.

The agenda would give previously convicted people an opportunity to start fresh after serving time. One component, “elder parole,” would allow incarcerated people over 55 who have also served 15 years or more an evaluation for potential parole. This population includes many of the sickest and oldest inmates in New York. It also includes the “Clean Slate Idea,” which would expunge old criminal records, and “Tuition Assistance Program for Incarcerated Students,” which would open up state funding to help pay for college. The roadmap also would stop local officers from assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents or enforcing federal immigration laws.

Mom vs. The Insurance Company

During Laura Nordstrom’s pregnancy with her first son, who is now five, her insurance was supposed to cover pregnancy-related costs. She discovered that it actually didn’t cover more than the initial tests and the actual birth of her son. At the five-month mark, the doctor ordered a scan for development which cost almost $1,000. It also confirmed they needed to go and see a specialist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and have other tests done, including a fetal MRI; those tests cost over $5,000.

What followed was a month of absolute fear. One of the scariest moments, she said, was when her insurance provider fought with her doctors, claiming that the tests were not necessary. If it wasn’t for the dutiful support from the hospital, she would have paid tens of thousands of dollars instead of a few thousand.

While she was grateful, she said people shouldn’t have to hope for an empathetic doctor to save them from a financial disaster. “An insurance company should not have the right to stand in the way of medical needs,” said Nordstrom, a candidate in next month’s Democratic primary for the Common Council’s Ward 7 seat. “They should not have a say in what’s necessary, that’s a doctor’s job... Healthcare is a human right and we should treat it as such."

In the midst of the global pandemic, more than 1 million New Yorkers live without health insurance, according to the agenda fact sheet. The sheet explained that this issue especially impacts communities of color, which has a disproportionately higher number of essential workers at higher risk of COVID-19 exposure.

The agenda calls for universal healthcare for all full-time workers and residents of New York, regardless of their immigration status. This healthcare would include comprehensive coverage, including medical, prescription, vision, dental, hearing, long-term care and support services, mental health and substance-use treatment and reproductive care. Financing would come from an income-based tax that would be adjusted according to folks’ financial status, which could lower the cost for 90 percent of New Yorkers, the fact sheet claimed.

The agenda also aims to lower the cost of all covered services which could reduce the money spent on healthcare by $10 billion.

Village of New Paltz Deputy Mayor KT Tobin and New Paltz Town Supervisor Neil Bettez were on hand; the New Paltz Town Board recently became the first municipality in the state to pass a resolution backing the agenda.

With this legislation, “we can improve the lives of stressed-out New Yorkers, move towards addressing systemic racism and inequality and take care of our most vulnerable, which will show us who we really are,” Tobin said.