Interview with Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson

Participant:

Video transcript:

Welcome back to Emerest Connect! I hope you’re having fun at our fabulous grand opening! We’re happy to have you right here with us today for our fabulous grand opening! That ribbon-cutting ceremony was just the cherry on top of this wonderfully fabulous day and not done. I am now seated in front of Vanessa Gibson who is the Bronx borough president. Look at her! She’s gorgeous and I love that suit. I want that, Vanessa! 

Vanessa was elected as the 14th Bronx borough president in November of 2021 to serve our 1.4 million residents within the Bronx Community. She is native to New York. Vanessa began her career in the heart of the Bronx and has continued to serve this community ever since. Vanessa served for two terms in the New York State Assembly and then ran for an open seat in the New York City Council in 2013 which she won. Congratulations! In 2020 Vanessa announced her run for the Bronx borough president with a goal to focus on public safety, food equity, housing insecurity, health and wellness, gender equality, and support for other community issues. Today she is in fact the Bronx borough president and continues to support her community every single day. Please, welcome Vanessa Gibson to our Emerest Connect studio. We’re so happy to have you!

Interviewer

I’m glad to be here my first time.

Vanessa Gibson

But we were joking because yesterday’s Halloween celebration and you said you were out there right across the street, at the police station.

Interviewer

Went to the local priest, yeah. But I really celebrated Halloween the past weekend Saturday with 80° weather. It was amazing!

Vanessa Gibson

It’s crazy, right? But that just goes to show how involved you are with the community and I guess that must be exciting for you to be able to now serve in this community. I mean, our grand opening is in the Bronx and that’s where our Emerest Connect is located. So, it’s really wonderful that now here you are. Does it mean a lot to you to see a facility like this right here?

Interviewer

It means a lot because we have a lot of incredible messengers and organizations that care about the future of the Bronx, that see the opportunities and see all of the potential that we have. And when it comes to healthcare, it is the greatest equalizer that we can ever invest in. When it comes to positive health outcomes for us in the Bronx, it’s a struggle every day. We face so many challenges – the highest rates of asthma, heart disease, obesity, and we need to make sure that we are provided with a support system, that’s comprehensive, that provides wraparound services for older adults, that meets them where they are. No judgment, no criticism. Whether they’re undocumented, they are underinsured, no matter what language they speak. So, I’m really grateful to welcome Emerest Connect here. Because it’s really important to make sure that we are connecting residents to comprehensive healthcare and wraparound services.

Vanessa Gibson

Absolutely! And I can feel it’s really a passion for you. It’s something that you care about deeply. Your residents here and how they are treated. So this, as we said, must be welcoming for you to have somebody take such an interest in your community. I’m sure you’re happy, but are you surprised at all the services that are being offered?

Interviewer

Well, number one, this place is gorgeous. I have never seen such an operation that supports home health aids the way that Emerest does. When it comes to free services in terms of Hair Care, Nails Care, just make sure they’re supported because a lot of these services the clients that we serve as well as the employees that we employ are not able to afford it. Many of our clients are living below the federal poverty level. They’re living from paycheck to paycheck. So, when you talk about home health aids, they look like our community. They are predominantly women, immigrant women, African-American women, Latina women. They’re women of color and they’re on the front lines. They are providing a valuable service to a population that often is vulnerable, that is isolated, living alone, not having any connection to services, people, family, friends, and loved ones. And for many of our older adults in the Bronx home health aids are their family.

Vanessa Gibson

Yeah, absolutely! I mean, how did you take this on as one of your missions? Because I can tell that you really are involved with this and you are really wanting it to be something that’s good and special, and service your community. Was it a personal thing? You grew up here, right?

Interviewer

I grew up in New York City, not in the Bronx, but I’ve served as an elected official for almost 15 years of my career, and being in the Bronx and seeing so much promise and potential. But also knowing as an out-of-borough we’re often forgotten and left behind, and we have some of the poorest health outcomes when it comes to the state of New York. We’re number 62 out of all 62 counties in New York state and that is challenging. That’s alarming! It’s a call to action and attention, but it also was a learning lesson on how can we turn those statistics into success stories, how can we set our clients up for success and not failure, how can we provide access to health and wellness, to a healthy lifestyle, to healthy food, because food insecurity is real. Comprehensive healthcare, mental health, behavioral health, trauma-informed care – all of those are wraparound services that many of our clients need and over my years as an elected official in the assembly, in the city council, and now as Bronx president, I’ve seen very focused on it and now as the Bronx president, it’s really my intention and my purpose to make sure those numbers are turned around. So, we are first in something good and not first in everything bad.

Vanessa Gibson

Yeah. And I imagine it must be a good challenge, but I imagine you’ve seen things changing and shifting. Are you ever surprised when you started? Where you’re like this – is this way and I can’t believe it’s become like this or have you seen things improving slowly? I mean, I know you’re on the front lines every day.

Interviewer

Yes, we have moved in a positive direction when it comes to healthy outcomes in terms of obesity rates among children, but we are always faced with something like the COVID-19 pandemic and it exacerbates a lot of the residents that are already living with many of these conditions. They have high blood pressure, they have cholesterol, they’re living with heart disease and obesity and many of these challenges are all preventable. What do you eat, what you are surrounded by the neighborhood partners, how do you access healthy food working with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene around health posts and farmers markets, and community gardens, growing our own fruits and vegetables. We are working with schools because we know it starts at the youngest age, school-based health centers, and making sure that we have so many of our outlets that should be available to residents regardless of how much they have in their bank account. And that’s been the challenge. The socioeconomics of poverty also revolves around housing, education, workforce healthcare. All of that works together in the areas where we have some of the poorest health outcomes. We also have some of the highest rates of housing instability. So, there is a correlation between the two.

Vanessa Gibson

Absolutely! And is it a challenge for you to get the word out? Is it a challenge for you to go into those communities and see exactly what you need to focus on? And are you surprised at some of the issues that you’ve seen? I mean some of you would know as we talked about, but you must come upon things that you thought: ” Wow, I didn’t even realize that!”

Interviewer

Many of the issues have an overlap, many of the issues are not new to me. I’ve lived with this for quite some time as an elected official, but we have made a lot of progress in terms of building affordable housing for seniors, pathways to home ownership, supporting young people, addressing gun violence and domestic and gender-based violence which is very relative as well. Supporting our immigrant community with adult literacy and workforce development, and real pathways to economic prosperity. If people know better they do better. So, how do you go into these communities and educate them? What does your outreach team look like? What does your messaging look like? The good thing about us, in the Bronx, is we have credible messengers, we have healthcare providers, we have so many organizations, our colleges, Faith leaders, they’re all on the ground and they have a continuity with the connections of the communities. So, they can speak the language, they know the culture. So, we go into the Muslim communities, the Christian Community, the Bangladeshi, the Bengali. We talked to everyone. We meet them with  AR, with no judgment and we’re able to connect them. We use credible messengers as a way to get in. Social media is good, emails. The media drives a lot of this conversation. How do we get information out? Who’s connected digitally, right? Who has internet access? All of this is relative to how you’re able to meet clients and also capture their, recruitment of new home health aids, going into the industries and making sure that we’re all always recruiting home health aids because we know, there’s always demand as the population gets older.

Vanessa Gibson

Absolutely! Are you ever overwhelmed when you get up and you’re like “I didn’t do all these things today”, and it’s a challenge?

Interviewer

All the time.

Vanessa Gibson

I don’t know how you do it.

Interviewer

It energizes me! I feel you solve 10 problems and you have 20 more, and you go to one issue, then you have to get jump to another, you deal with housing, then it’s healthcare, then it’s education, it’s cannabis, it’s public safety, it’s domestic violence, it’s breast cancer awareness, it’s everything and the beauty about being the borough president is I have an amazing staff. So, we have a staff that does this work every day, that serves thousands of residents every single year. And this is the second year we’ve released our strategic policy plan which lays out our blueprint. Every time we have a meeting, it’s always about certain priorities that we want: large-scale apartments, ground-level retail. We want schools, we want early-child care centers, we want to open new schools, we want renovations to parks and playgrounds, we want to make sure that we’re building neighborhoods, we’re adding value to communities are not taking away. So, many residents feel like the city is growing unaffordable every day and everything we do is about bringing on new people well. We have to take care of home first before we welcome new people coming into our city. That’s the fair thing to do. It’s a balanced approach and it also recognizes that the seniors, the older population in this borough were in the Bronx at a time when no one was here, when people fled. They saw the Bronx burning and they left. Now we are lit up on fire for a reason in terms of energy, in terms of our determination to make this borough the best place to live, to work, to do business, and to raise our family. And the hardworking residents of this borough deserve better. They deserve good community centers, great schools, clean parks, trash being picked up, and homeownership opportunities. These are all a part of the fundamentals of what is basic for me, not the ceiling, but the floor. So,  when I think about what Emerest Connect is doing here, right here, in the heart of Longwood, a big challenging community, the South Bronx, a lot of opportunities are here, and as long as you have the commitment and the drive to do it with no judgment and meeting clients where they are you will be successful because this is a borough of opportunity. It’s a global destination and the reality is if you are a trusted neighbor and you believe in the future of the Bronx, that you are someone that my office wants to work with.

Vanessa Gibson

That’s great! You’re wonderful! Your clients or constituents must be proud to have somebody like you.

Interviewer

Thank you. I hope so. Every day I try.

Vanessa Gibson

Well, congratulations! We’re so happy to have you here. I mean it’s really lovely and I, as you said, think the entire Bronx can benefit from what we’re offering here.

Interviewer

Absolutely!

Vanessa Gibson

Thank you so much!

Interviewer

Official –  Welcome to the Bronx!

Vanessa Gibson

Thank you for being here and for being a voice for your community and for everyone to learn something about it. And the importance of what you’re offering. It’s amazing! Wish you nothing but the best!

Interviewer

Thank you so much.

Vanessa Gibson

And I want your suit!

Interviewer