During the midterm elections in 2014, for which there was a historically low showing, voters in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens, reached through Ms. Hackett’s initiative, turned out at a considerably higher rate than registered voters in the Bronx and Queens generally, 35 percent compared with 22 percent. Nearly half of those “community voters” had a household income of under $25,000. Among those reached in Queensbridge through Jacob Riis, turnout was 40 percent.
Located in a stretch of Long Island City, in Queens, close to but psychologically distant from new glass apartment towers that offer rock-climbing walls and in certain instances call themselves “clubs,” the Queensbridge Houses make up the largest public housing project in the country. Built near the East River in the late 1930s, they contain 96 low-rise buildings and more than 7,000 people. Music critics have noted that, on a per-capita basis, Queensbridge — at various points home to Nas, Capone, Tragedy Khadafi, Marley Marl — is responsible for unleashing more hip-hop talent than any other location in the world.
Queensbridge is hardly an idyll — a shooting there in June left a 23-year-old dead — but it is distinguished, at least at this moment, by a sense of refurbishment. Construction mesh and scaffolding surround the buildings; men are at work. And this in itself is remarkable in a city where public housing has for years been in a state of such notorious disrepair. In August, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that his administration was investing $300 million to replace roofs in public-housing developments across New York. Leaks were responsible for mold and water damage that afflicted countless apartments in the system. Queensbridge would receive close to $90 million of that money and stand among the first developments to undergo work.
Maude Askin, vice president of the senior center, has lived in the Queensbridge Houses since the 1960s. Credit Emon Hassan for The New York Times Photo by: Emon Hassan for The New York Times
Christopher Hanway, the director of the Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement, a provider of social services in the Queensbridge Houses for 65 years, uses that as an example of what political participation can yield for a community that often has little faith in civic engagement. In New York and across the country, poor people vote at considerably lower rates than wealthier people. Nationally, 47 percent of eligible adults with household incomes of $20,000 or less voted in the 2012 elections, and only a quarter in that cohort voted in the 2010 midterm elections, according to the Census Bureau; among those making $100,000 or more, the figures climb to 80 percent and 60 percent. How to narrow the gap has been a longstanding challenge.
There is a prevailing feeling in the community, Mr. Hanway told me in a small conference room at the settlement house one recent morning: “Nothing changes, the system is fixed, votes don’t matter.” The renovations at Queensbridge have given him a strong counternarrative against those complaints. Without the election of Jimmy Van Bramer to the City Council seat in the 26th District, which includes the housing complex, those repairs might never have gotten underway, Mr. Hanway contends. When Mr. Van Bramer was running for the first time in 2009, he made an effort to come to the housing projects and talk to people. During the Democratic primary, he was not the candidate who seemed destined to win. “He wasn’t the party choice,” Mr. Hanway said. “The party choice came once, but Jimmy really focused on public housing, to his credit. It was shrewd; if he hadn’t been elected, this pattern of being forgotten would have continued.”
Interested in voting patterns, Mr. Hanway three years ago partnered with Louisa Hackett, who, during her years as a consultant to nonprofit agencies, kept returning to the notion that many of the social problems her clients were trying to solve would be easier to remedy if the people affected by them made their voices heard through the electoral process. With the help of some grant money, she started an initiative called Community Votes to see whether voter registration and turnout rates could be improved in a select group of low-income neighborhoods. Queensbridge was among them.
Research had shown that personalized messaging, like knocking on doors, was the most effective way to mobilize voters. But knocking on doors in housing projects, as community organizers will tell you, does not typically produce the desired result. Inspired by the mission of the Massachusetts outfit Nonprofit VOTE, which works with existing community groups to increase voter turnout, Ms. Hackett approached nonprofits already operating in specific neighborhoods to get them to reach out to eligible and potential voters — perhaps when they were coming in for something else, to get a letter or a form translated, for instance. Older residents who were active voters were also enlisted to encourage younger, more apathetic residents to become more involved.
At Jacob Riis, one of those voters was Maude Askin, 83, who has lived in Queensbridge since the 1960s. She told her story. “I wasn’t able to vote until I got here to New York,” Ms. Askin, who moved to the city from South Carolina, said. “Once I registered here it was nonstop.” Since then, Ms. Askin hasn’t missed voting in an election. Through Jacob Riis, people who came in were asked to make voting pledges, addressing cards to themselves that were mailed right before Election Day reminding them to go to the polls.
During the midterm elections in 2014, for which there was a historically low showing, voters in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens, reached through Ms. Hackett’s initiative, turned out at a considerably higher rate than registered voters in the Bronx and Queens generally, 35 percent compared with 22 percent. Nearly half of those “community voters” had a household income of under $25,000. Among those reached in Queensbridge through Jacob Riis, turnout was 40 percent. The data is included in a report recently released by Nonprofit VOTE showing similar findings nationally, which is to say that when potential voters were personally contacted and encouraged, through groups they were already familiar with, voter turnout rates were higher, particularly among those making less than $25,000 a year.
The idea behind all of this is relatively simple and painfully obvious: that a trusted neighbor is, in essence, a better salesman of ideas than a tall, eager, plaid-shirted 22-year-old just out of Yale, strolling a housing project’s common grounds with a clipboard and a noble sense of purpose. The initiative was especially effective in mobilizing young people to vote.
“Everyone’s trying to use apps to change the world,” Ms. Hackett told me. “It’s app this, app that. Young people want apps. But ultimately, so much of the time it all just boils down to Conversation 101.”
© 2015 The New York Times Company.