A Republican candidate running for governor on a platform to make New York affordable and safe said he wants to “make people happy again.”
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman sat down with Able News for an exclusive interview as he made the case to be the next New York State governor that’s right for the disabled community. He’ll face incumbent Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul in November.
The one-on-one interview with the hopeful gubernatorial candidate in late April, at the Henry Viscardi School at The Viscardi Center, touched on several topics impacting the disability community including education, housing and employment.
Housing Needs
Affordable and accessible housing has been hard to find for New Yorkers with disabilities as the majority of the disabled population live on a fixed income and homes are not built to meet their needs. There are nearly 4 million disabled New Yorkers, but barely 13% reside in Nassau County.
Albert Diaz and his twin brother, Alberto, both have cerebral palsy and have been living with their mother in an accessible home in Mineola for the past 29 years. They were able to buy after selling a previous property and demolished a second property that they had owned to cover the expense of accommodating the house to their needs.
The twins have used their social media to highlight the importance of accessible housing, calling on architectural designers and politicians to invest in housing that is user-friendly to wheelchair users.
Blakeman vowed to build more housing for people with disabilities, especially for autistic adults and disabled veterans.
“We realize that we need housing for everybody, but we need to have housing for people of all abilities,” he told Able News, saying that he plans to continue his work with Tunnels to Tower Foundation and Harry Singh’s Bolla Charity Foundation, both of which build housing for disabled veterans, to deliver on this promise.
Boosting Employment Opportunities
A 2024-25 state comptroller’s report found that the disability employment rate in New York is less than half that of non-disabled New Yorkers. Blakeman said, “We need more jobs for people with disabilities, and that will be something that is a cornerstone of my tenure as governor ’cause I think it’s a great thing to do. It’s good for everybody. But more importantly, it’s good for the economy.”
“Working gives you self-confidence. It gives you self-respect,” he said. “We want to keep people productive, feel good about themselves, make some money, be able to be self-sustaining. Working is a virtue.” For that reason, Blakeman’s Nassau County Executive Office hired two disabled individuals that he recruited from a job fair held in his county.
County Executive Blakeman invested a total of $600,000 for the establishment and marketing of the Museum of Disability History, located in Albertson. “Those are the types of things that have a win-win,” he said. “Not only are we helping people with disabilities, we’re educating people. Not only are we educating people, we are creating tourism here in our county. People will come from all around to visit the museum.”
Education and vocational training are also on his top priority list, he said, hence his funding of the museum and The Viscardi Center that trains and prepares youth and adults with disabilities for the workforce.
Making His Case
Since launching his gubernatorial campaign, Blakeman has blasted two of Hochul’s top policies that have been both beneficial and harmful to disabled New Yorkers.
“Kathy Hochul and I have a lot of disagreements, and that’s just one of them,” he told Able News when saying that he will end congestion pricing on day one.
When asked by Able News how he would plan to fund subway accessibility projects by the MTA without the tolls and fix care services for those who need it the most, the Republican candidate for governor did not provide detailed solutions or substantive backing for his criticisms.
“There’s too much fraud, abuse, and waste in our budget,” he also said, as in Hochul’s handling of New York’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP). One year ago, Gov. Hochul’s administration required all consumers and personal assistants to transition to a single statewide fiscal intermediary, Public Partnerships LLC (PPL), a move that drew widespread criticism from lawmakers, individuals and families.
“The state has a bigger role in helping families who have a child with a disability, not only while they’re a child, but when they grow and they become adults and the parents get older and it’s harder and harder to take care of the children,” he said. “The state and all levels of government need to do more and that’s something that I feel very strongly about because here in our county, we love children of all abilities, and we want every child to flourish.”
That’s the attitude Blakeman is convinced will put him over the top if he wins the November election and is seated as governor.
“When you’re governor, you have a responsibility to be governor for all people. Every race, every religion, every ethnic group, people of all abilities, and all lifestyles, and I want to be the governor that listens to the people, that cares about the people,” the Nassau Executive concluded.
“A lot of people take the disability community for granted, and they’re not proactive, and they don’t do things that are new…. And that’s the kind of thing that we need to do…let people know that there are people with disabilities out there, and guess what?They can be independent, they can compete. They’re athletes, and they’re also people who can join the workforce and contribute to the economy of the state.”