Change will come with experience and dedication.
Diagnosed with brain cancer and experiencing a stroke that took away her ability to walk and eloquently speak her mind in 2017, Nisha Agarwal is ready to revamp the New York City Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD) with her new perspective as a member of the disabled community.
Appointed as the fastest commissioner in MOPD history by way of a press release by Mayor Zohran Mamdani in February, Agarwal, who joined Able News in an exclusive interview in mid-March, understands that this time, her responsibilities must go beyond the advisory role the office is accustomed to serving.
This is the first part of the sequel interview conducted at MOPD’s Manhattan headquarters where Agarwal discussed solutions to the many issues impacting the disability community.
“I really was happy that I was picked early on because it shows the respect that the mayor thinks about with people with disabilities,” Agarwal said a month into the job. A child of Indian immigrants, Agarwal, an attorney with a long tenure in public service, served as the Senior Advisor to the Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives under the Bill de Blasio administration, where she worked to boost civic engagement among New Yorkers and build DemocracyNYC’s efforts on immigration, people with disabilities, and justice-involved communities.
A previous goal set by former mayor Eric Adams’ administration of helping 2,500 New Yorkers with disabilities find, prepare for, and connect to jobs was surpassed by nearly 50% in collaboration with the New York City Mayor’s Office of Talent and Workforce Development (NYC Talent), the New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS) and the New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) last month.
But in Agarwal’s eyes, NYC: ATWORK can do more.
Pledging more equal decision-making power and meaningful employment for disabled workers who make up less than half of New York City’s workforce, due to discrimination, Agarwal wants to help people with disabilities find employment.
“We are trying to get people [into] employment and moving that forward but there are discrimination laws that we want to uphold as well,” she said.
With a budget of only nearly $680,000, MOPD is significantly underfunded. However, on the campaign trail, Mamdani criticized the office’s dysfunctionality under the prior administration for being poorly staffed. Agarwal is in agreement with the mayor that choosing the right people makes everything run smoother.
Currently, the office is comprised of four administrative positions and 20 staff members. Empowered to address intersectional discrimination head-on and expand disability-led employment opportunities, her goal is to hire more interns who can provide more than just the bare minimum to ensure disability rights.
That is why her plan is to create a staff that can be program oriented, think systematically and understand that the budget is a secondary perspective.
While in law school, Agarwal learned that litigation was not her true calling and looking back, she told Able News that she does not only want to give people with disabilities the opportunity to come to that realization but also wants to share the same excitement she felt as a kid when envisioning her future, exploring all the possibilities and learning what really mattered.
“I want to hire more people with disabilities, so they get some experience working for the government and learning what we do,” she said. “When you’re a young person, you want to explore all sorts of possibilities and that’s the best time, when you’re learning.”
Agarwal sees more staffing at MOPD as a means to start a more collaborative relationship with other agencies because “no decision by the city should be made without disability folks.”
“I thought I understood disabilities when I was so-called able-bodied, and then I had disabilities and I understood nothing. And I realized that because I was disabled afterwards, every aspect of my life changed,” Agarwal told Able News when beginning to detail her recovery process. “I strongly feel that you can’t know it unless you have it.”
Communication is key in a new agency that Agarwal has been asked to pioneer and lucky for her, she will have Councilmember Shahana Hanif as Chair of the inaugural city council Committee on Disabilities, fighting by her side to help deliver one last promise to disabled New Yorkers— “I promise you, we will leave a legacy that’s better than when I came.”