Melvin Rivera

According to his campaign website, Rivera was born at Greenpoint Hospital and raised in Bushwick, Brooklyn, in the 1980s.[1] His community work began with his first job as a high school student at the YMCA, and the site says he has been a community activist for more than 30 years, working with at-risk youth, seniors, and people with special needs.[1] He says he helped create tenant associations and cease-and-desist zones in East New York and Cypress Hills, assisted families displaced by Hurricane Maria in 2018 with housing, benefits, and employment connections, and is helping develop legislation for an Anti-Flip Tax.[1]

Rivera says that in 2019 a management company (Riseboro) mismanaged his rent-stabilized building and neighboring properties into foreclosure, and that he organized tenants across nine buildings targeted by New York City's Third-Party Transfer program, protecting the affordability of more than 150 rent-stabilized apartments.[1] In 2020 he served in the NYC Mayor's Public Engagement Unit during the COVID-19 pandemic as a Social Distance Ambassador, and he helped organize community opposition to National Grid's proposed North Brooklyn Pipeline.[1] His campaign biography says he experienced homelessness earlier in life and chose to run as an independent; Ballotpedia lists him on the November ballot as the Republican and Conservative Party candidate (also on the No Kings Party and Arts & Culture Party lines), after the Republican primary was canceled.[1][2] He received 15.0% of the vote to Claire Valdez's 83.3%, according to unofficial results reported by NBC News.[3]