Caribbean American Leaders Weigh In at the National Urban League’s Power Breakfast

The National Urban League hosted its Power Breakfast for Black and Latino Communities on Monday, March 2, at the Empowerment Center in Harlem, bringing together elected officials, city and state leaders, and advocates to address the economic and housing disparities disproportionately affecting these populations. Discussions centered on access to employment, rent stability, homeownership, and technology education in public schools.

National Urban League President Marc Morial, who carries his Haitian heritage alongside a family legacy of civic leadership, opened the breakfast by framing the core economic tension driving the affordability crisis: wages have not kept pace with the cost of living. He noted that rents have increased five times faster than incomes, and argued that the affordability problem in the United States is fundamentally one of stagnant earnings colliding with rising costs. 

“The money we earn has been stagnant, and housing costs, where people spend a third to half of their income, have risen higher than inflation,” he said.

He urged Black and Latino business and Civic leaders to play a more meaningful and aggressive role in addressing this crisis. 

Speaker Heastie Points to Housing Crisis and Black Population Exodus

New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, who’s family roots are traced back to The Bahamas, delivered the keynote address, calling the state’s affordability crisis a driver of significant demographic change.

“This affordability crisis is real,” Heastie said, pointing specifically to the migration of Black residents from New York. “And the biggest flight from this state is Black people.”

The data backs him up. New York has one of the lowest rental vacancy rates in the nation, a scarcity that creates upward pressure on rents, squeezing working families hardest. “We do need to increase our housing stock,” Heastie said plainly. “We have a low vacancy rate that has an inflationary effect on rent.”

He also raised the long-neglected issue of homeownership as a pathway to wealth — and signaled support for bringing back a closing cost coverage program to make that pathway more accessible. His message was direct: 

“Too many families are paying their incomes towards housing.”

Roundtable: Jobs, Housing, and Economic Opportunity

A roundtable moderated by Dennis G. Serrette, National Urban League EVP and Chief Development Officer, featured remarks from three officials on what their agencies are doing to address affordability and economic access.

NYC Comptroller Mark Levine argued that the public conversation on affordability is incomplete without addressing stagnant wages and a weakening job market – the two sides of affordability.

“There are two halves to the affordability crisis — how much things cost and how difficult it is to cover rent and groceries, and so much more. And there’s how much you earn and how difficult it has become to find a good paying job. We are not talking enough about this,” Levine said.

He pointed to a troubling economic reality: the City created no new jobs last year. The unemployment rate is climbing. While the tech sector represents one of the few bright spots in the economy, those jobs are overwhelmingly going to workers recruited from outside New York, not to the communities that have built this city.

“There is very little tech training in public schools,” he added, also calling for expanded credit access for Black and Brown entrepreneurs who can hire locally.

Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning Leila Bozorg tied the city’s 1.4% vacancy rate directly to the departure of Black residents. 

“The center of our affordability is housing. This 1.4 vacancy rate has dire consequences and has resulted in the exodus of Black populations,” she said. 

Bozorg outlined workforce initiatives tied to housing construction, including community hiring goals and MBE-guaranteed facilities, and said the administration is focused on using its purchasing power to broaden who benefits from public investment.

Robert J. Rodriguez, President and CEO of the Dormitory Authority of New York State, said his agency is maintaining and expanding its commitment to MWBE contracting, with a goal to exceed 30%, at a time when many corporations are pulling back.

He also emphasized the need to connect large-scale public investments with future job opportunities and highlighted free tuition pathways for fields including battery storage, chip manufacturing, and clean energy, noting that “CUNY and SUNY play a major role” in expanding these programs.

Congressmember Adriano Espaillat, the first Dominican American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, highlighted major infrastructure investment as both an economic opportunity and a test of whether communities can retain the residents who built them. He pointed to the upcoming Second Avenue Subway extension as a prime example, a project that will create a major transportation hub connecting East Harlem to the broader region and generate an estimated 16,000 jobs.

Espaillat argued that projects of this scale should directly benefit the communities they run through. But he also raised a harder question about what happens when investment drives up costs faster than it creates opportunity. “Can we survive our own success, or be victims of our own success?” he asked.

Remarks were also delivered by Assemblymember Jordan Wright.

Power Breakfast sponsors included Charter Spectrum, Northwell Health, Charles John O’Byrne, Patrick Jenkins and Associates, Cortentia, The New York Real Estate Chamber, Hollis Public Affairs, New York City and Vicinity Dostrict Council of Carpenters, Ninedot Energy, Empire Consulting Group, District Council 9 New York, Mercury, London House, and Bolton-St. Johns.

Photos by Leonard McKenzie