Adolfo Carrión Jr., one of NYC’s new deputy mayors, on jumping in the ‘deep end of the pool’

Adolfo Carrión Jr. doesn’t balk at reinvention. Throughout his public service-centered career, he’s been a youth pastor, a city planner, a City Council member, helped secure housing and jobs through the Yankee stadium deal as Bronx borough president, used the city as a classroom while teaching English Language Learners at a public school, served under the Obama administration and in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, ran for mayor as an independent, helped oversee the development of the City of Yes housing plan at the helm of the city’s Housing Department – and most recently became one of New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ new deputy mayors. That’s just the professional ventures. Take a stroll around his City Island home and you’ll likely stumble across his gleaming blue Harley motorcycle, the four bee hives he tends to, and the equipment he and his family like to take out on the water.

Now the city’s new deputy mayor for housing, economic development, and workforce, Carrión is less concerned about reinvention and more on ensuring there is stability – that the city’s ambitious housing goals forge forward despite challenges from within the Adams administration and beyond. He stepped into the deputy mayor role in mid March following the resignations of First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom, Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Chauncey Parker.

Between the high-profile resignations, Adams’ legal and political troubles throwing the likelihood of a second term in doubt, and the potential threat of losing vital federal funding under the Trump administration, it’s a complicated time to step into the role. But with the Adams administration notching a string of recent housing wins and more big infrastructure projects in the pipeline like the Brooklyn Marine Terminal transformation, Carrión is embracing the opportunity – or as he put it a recent press conference at Yankee Stadium, to be deputy mayor of the “fun stuff.”

Following that press conference, City & State joined Carrión at a deli he used to regularly frequent as Bronx borough president to talk about taking on the role only a few months out from the mayoral election, his biggest priorities, how the Adams administration is preparing for a potential drop in federal funding, the great need for political courage, the legacy of City of Yes and more. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You are a few weeks into your new position as a deputy mayor for housing, economic development and workforce, joining several other new appointees. How has the transition gone so far?

It’s definitely diving into the deep end of the pool. You’re not wading, you’re not treading water. You start swimming. But it’s been very, very smooth, and I think part of it is that we had a very good working relationship with the previous deputy mayor – in this case, mine was Maria Torres-Springer. I got all the briefings I needed, the team at City Hall are great. They know the stuff, they know the agencies, they know the issues, they know the budget, they know the legislation that’s in the pipeline. So they basically embraced me and we got going on the first day.

The deputy mayors have a daily meeting with the mayor, a daily call with all the deputy mayors. Every issue that touches New Yorkers lives’ we’re talking about it at 8 in the morning and we’re trying to stay ahead of the trends and crisis and think about opportunities.

Why did you decide to accept the deputy mayor position instead of staying on as commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development?

It was important (that) the work that was already underway remains stable. There’s a continuity of effort and that the people who are our external partners have confidence that the work is going to get done. When you look at the external partners in my portfolio as a city planner, I worked with almost every other commissioner and their agencies in one way or another. For instance, public libraries are in my portfolio. We’re building mixed-use buildings with libraries and housing. We’re talking about 2,500 units of affordable housing in Queens. We’re talking about several thousand units of affordable housing on the Brooklyn waterfront. We’re working on the Brooklyn Marine Terminal. As a planner, it’s like geek heaven. We’re going to do these things, change the landscape and make the economy a more competitive destination for tourism.

We’ve got five major neighborhood plans across the city. One on rezoning Central Brooklyn just passed City Council. One in Queens just got certified by the Planning Commission. It’s going to be voted on in the early fall. There’s a few others behind that. All of it is the kind of work that I’ve been doing pretty much all of my adult life. So, it feels very natural and very comfortable to be in the space.

You’re coming into the role a bit late. There’s a mayoral election coming up and a fair degree of uncertainty about what will happen with Mayor Eric Adams and whether he will be the mayor next year. With that in mind, what are your biggest priorities for the remainder of the year?

We will work hard to keep the ship on course to make the city affordable for working people, be the best place to raise a family and ensure people can get jobs and create systems and platforms for job generation. Whether it’s a science park on the East Side of Manhattan, the Brooklyn Marine Terminal, supporting the Hunts Point food distribution center or creating a blue highway that connects these ports that gets trucks off neighborhood streets, we need to create a fertile environment for small businesses. We’ve had an explosion of small businesses. We want to continue that.

If you think about making the city a place that’s the best to raise a family, I’m a living testimony. My parents were in their 20s when they got here from Puerto Rico and didn’t speak a lick of English but went from a subbasement tenement apartment to public housing in the Lower East Side to federally assisted limited equity co-ops on the Lower East Side to buying a home all within a decade. Our job now is to repeat that story.

How do we do it? Principally, it’s to get the housing built, get those major economic development projects done and make sure that we continue to be a magnet for tourism and for investment from around the world. We want to be the fintech Silicon Valley. We want the industries to look at New York and say, there’s an open door policy and they’ve made a way for us, and that will obviously generate lots of opportunity.

I read a good story on an unusual alignment between tenant advocates and the Real Estate Board of New York regarding a potential $357 million drop in federal funding for housing. How is the Adams administration preparing for a potential major drop in funding for federal housing aid?

We need to continue to do our daily job. You can’t get paralyzed. We’re doing very aggressive advocacy work with the agency heads, members of Congress and both sides of the aisle. We will talk to the people who care about our issues. There is no partisan split on low income housing tax credits, one of the hottest bipartisan tools that we have in the country to produce affordable housing. It sustains a public-private partnership between the development community, bankers and local governments, which is our oxygen. We’re using every tool and relationship to ensure that people understand if there is disinvestment, it will hurt everybody. An economic crisis doesn’t discriminate. So, we’re very fixed on our federal advocacy, as we are in our state advocacy.

You were a City Council member years ago. I would imagine that’s been helpful for you throughout your time with the Adams administration as you have an understanding of how things work across the hall. To what degree do you expect to work with the City Council as deputy mayor?

I think there will continue to be lots of interaction. As commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, there was always lots of it. Just look at all the housing-related stuff we’ve gotten through the state Legislature, some of the local laws the City Council has passed – it’s all in partnership. It all gets sort of stress tested by the City Council. It helps to have a perspective about what a member feels when they’re being asked to do something – especially when they’re being asked to do something that’s unpopular and they know it.

Political courage is still too rare. Sure, you hope that people will say, “Wow, that person was so honest. They had integrity and they fought for what they believed in. I may have disagreed with them, but they’re a principled person.” But I often tell young candidates to operate in office as if it doesn’t matter whether you serve another term. I think the public’s exhaustion comes from this waffling and shifting back and forth. They think who is showing up today? What do you believe today?

I’ve had those kinds of hard conversations with members where I ask them where they want to be looking back on this? Did you step up? When it came to City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, there were some members that I had to get on the phone with and walk them through the logic and the storyline for posterity. What’s going to happen in the future? Do you want to be that “no” vote to this positive thing that could transform the city? I think I convinced a few.

As has historically been the case for big land use proposals, many New Yorkers were concerned about how City of Yes for Housing Opportunity might change their communities. How do you think people will look back on the plan in the future?

If they remember it – and I say if because people have short memories, which is why I encourage political leaders to be courageous and know that the pain of the moment, the noise of the moment will pass and you will get to that better place that we’re all trying to build.

I think the few people who remember it though will say that it was a smart thing to do for New York City, because we couldn't afford to live here, and now my kids can come back home from college and have choices here. For every person who is lucky and able to find a place to live, there are hundreds who just struggle to find an apartment that’s reasonable, safe, healthy in a decent neighborhood. We talk about fair housing and we use these fuzzy words, but look, it’s a simple concept. It’s giving people a choice to look across the city and say, “Oh, I like that neighborhood. I’d like to live there.”

Housing experts have high hopes that the Charter Revision Commission convened by Mayor Eric Adams in December will tackle housing reform – potentially even making changes to member deference so many land use decisions no longer hinge on a single council member. The commission is independent from the Adams administration, but still, what issues within housing do you hope members will tackle?

If they tackle member deference, it’s important to understand that like a sanctuary city, it’s not a real thing in the sense that it’s not a legal thing – it’s not built into the city charter, our city’s rule book. It’s a cultural invention and a political understanding.

To memorialize it into the city’s constitution, that’s a real stretch. I don’t know. If I were a betting man, I don’t know which way I would bet on this one. Any Charter Revision Commission is an opportunity to look at the rules again or invent new ones so we will see what comes of it. 

Do you feel like there’s been a sea change in the way that people are looking at housing in New York City?

Certainly in our city, but also across the country. The presidential candidates were talking about affordability, affordable housing and cost of living. It’s become a popular issue. Young couples are not able to find housing that’s accessible and affordable. The vacancy rate is absurd, especially for working people. So we’re focused on producing that kind of city.