Biography
Melvin Rivera for Congress (NY-7)
Melvin Rivera was born and raised in Bushwick, Brooklyn during the turbulent 1980s, when New York City communities were grappling with the AIDS epidemic and the crack cocaine crisis. Growing up during one of the most challenging periods in the city’s history shaped Melvin’s deep sense of responsibility to his neighbors and his lifelong commitment to service.
Melvin has been a community activist for more than 30 years, beginning with his first job as a high school student at the YMCA. From a young age he dedicated himself to helping others, working with vulnerable populations including at-risk youth, seniors, and people with special needs. Through decades of grassroots advocacy, Melvin has focused on strengthening communities and ensuring that working families are not left behind.
Through his community advocacy and organizing, Melvin has helped draft and support legislation, assisted in the creation of tenant associations, and fought to protect tenants from displacement. His work helped ensure that rents did not increase for more than 150 rent-stabilized apartments, protecting families from de-stabilization. Melvin also assisted in the creation of cease-and-desist zones in East New York and Cypress Hills, helping protect low- and moderate-income minority homeowners from aggressive real-estate speculators whose practices have contributed to today’s housing crisis and rising unaffordability.
Today, Melvin is continuing that work by helping develop legislation to create an Anti-Flip Tax, aimed at deterring housing speculators from quickly buying and reselling properties for profit while driving up housing prices in working-class neighborhoods. The proposal is designed to protect long-term residents, stabilize communities, and preserve opportunities for homeownership.
In 2018, Melvin worked closely with families displaced by Hurricane Maria, helping them connect with affordable and sustainable housing, public benefits, employment opportunities. He assisted residents with job readiness programs, career-focused training, and access to holistic services including medical care and mental health support, helping families rebuild stability during a difficult time.
In 2019, Melvin faced a housing battle personally when a corrupt building management company (Riseboro) intentionally mismanaged his rent-stabilized building and several neighboring properties into foreclosure. Refusing to accept the displacement of his neighbors, Melvin organized tenants across nine affected buildings that were targeted through New York City’s controversial Third-Party Transfer (TPT) program. Through relentless advocacy and organizing, he successfully pushed back against unjust rent increases, protecting the affordability of over 150 rent-stabilized apartments and ensuring families could remain in their homes.
In 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 global pandemic, Melvin served in the Mayor’s Public Engagement Unit. At a critical moment in the public health crisis, Melvin recommended distributing masks to the general public to help limit the spread of the airborne virus, reduce the burden on frontline workers, and help communities regain a sense of normalcy. As a Social Distance Ambassador, he also worked to ensure restaurants and public spaces complied with health and safety guidelines to protect the public while helping small businesses re-open doors.
That same year, Melvin helped organize community opposition to National Grid’s proposed North Brooklyn Pipeline, which residents feared would create harmful health and economic impacts for communities in Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Brownsville. Through this work, Melvin built strong relationships with community leaders and advocates who shared his commitment to protecting neighborhood health and environmental justice.
Melvin’s path into politics was not planned. Through years of doing the work—organizing tenants, helping families, and standing up for his neighbors—he found himself increasingly involved in the policy decisions affecting his community. When he saw that the political establishment was failing to address the concerns of everyday residents, Melvin realized that no one was coming to save these neighborhoods.
After overcoming personal hardship, including experiencing homelessness earlier in his life, Melvin built stability through perseverance and dedication. Now he is walking away from the comfort of that stability and risking it all to fight for the neighborhoods he loves.
Every community in New York’s 7th Congressional District is close to his heart. Melvin was born at Greenpoint Hospital—once a major medical facility that later served as a men’s homeless shelter and today stands as affordable rent-stabilized housing. For Melvin, housing advocacy is not just political—it is deeply personal.
Through his work, Melvin has also gained firsthand insight into how political systems operate and the influence of entrenched party structures. Believing that his values no longer align with those institutions, Melvin has chosen to run as Independent, focused on practical solutions rather than political loyalty.
Leading with logic and common sense, Melvin Rivera’s campaign centers on accountability, transparency, and free enterprise, along with a commitment to strengthening families and building safer, more stable communities. His years of grassroots service, personal resilience, and dedication to helping others have given him the empathy and foresight needed to lead.
Melvin believes the challenges facing Brooklyn and Queens require tailored solutions—not a one-size-fits-all approach. His experience on the ground, working directly with the people most affected by policy decisions, is what makes him uniquely qualified to represent New York’s 7th Congressional District in Congress.
