Shahana Hanif
Based on Wikipedia: Shahana Hanif
At seventeen years old, Shahana Hanif received a diagnosis that would reshape her entire life. She had lupus—an autoimmune disease where the body's immune system turns against itself, attacking healthy tissue. There is no cure. The disease can damage joints, skin, kidneys, the heart, and the brain. Some patients live relatively normal lives with careful management. Others face life-threatening complications.
For a teenager in Brooklyn, the diagnosis meant something unexpected: a crash course in how broken the American healthcare system can be.
Hanif's family had immigrated from Bangladesh. They lived in Kensington, a neighborhood in Brooklyn with one of the largest Bangladeshi communities in the United States. Like many immigrant families, they had health insurance—but not good health insurance. The kind that comes with high deductibles, confusing paperwork, and the constant anxiety of wondering whether a necessary treatment will be covered.
Navigating this system while chronically ill transformed Hanif. She began to see healthcare not as a personal problem but as a political one. Why should a seventeen-year-old have to fight with insurance companies while also fighting her own immune system? Why did some people get excellent care while others struggled to afford basic treatments?
These questions would eventually lead her to the New York City Council, where she became the first Muslim woman and the first Bangladeshi American ever elected to that body.
From Patient to Organizer
After graduating from Bishop Kearney High School—a Catholic girls' school that, somewhat ironically, would later be represented by a Muslim woman in city government—Hanif enrolled at Brooklyn College. She chose to study women's and gender studies, a field that examines how gender shapes power, opportunity, and social structures.
It was there that she discovered intersectional activism. The term "intersectionality" was coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to describe how different forms of discrimination overlap and compound. A Black woman, for instance, doesn't experience racism and sexism separately—she experiences them together, in ways that are distinct from what either a Black man or a white woman might face.
For Hanif, this framework helped make sense of her own experience. She wasn't just a person with a chronic illness. She was a Muslim woman, the daughter of immigrants, a person of color, someone navigating both the healthcare system and the particular expectations placed on women in her community.
She joined two campus organizations: the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence and Naree Shongothok, a group whose Bengali name translates roughly to "Women's Collective" and focused on organizing Bangladeshi women for social change. These weren't just clubs. They were training grounds.
The Path Through Community Organizing
After graduating in 2015, Hanif took an unusual detour. She traveled to Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, where she worked with women's organizations. Bangladesh, despite being a Muslim-majority country, has been led by women for much of its recent history—Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina have traded the prime ministership back and forth for decades. The country presents a complicated picture of gender relations: progressive in some ways, deeply traditional in others.
When Hanif returned to Brooklyn, she carried with her a deepened awareness of gender-based inequality. She had seen it in Dhaka, and she could now recognize it more clearly in her own community in Kensington.
She went to work for the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence, often called by its acronym CAAAV—pronounced like "carve" but with an extra syllable. The organization had been founded in 1986 in response to violence against Asian Americans in New York City. By the time Hanif joined, its focus had expanded to housing justice.
Hanif spent two years organizing tenants in New York City Housing Authority buildings—the sprawling public housing complexes known as NYCHA. These buildings house over 400,000 New Yorkers and have been plagued by decades of neglect: broken elevators, mold, lead paint, heating failures in winter. Many residents are immigrants who face language barriers when trying to get repairs done or understand their rights.
Hanif focused on Bangladeshi and other Asian residents, helping them navigate the bureaucracy, attend tenant meetings, and advocate collectively for better conditions. It was unglamorous work—the kind that rarely makes headlines but that slowly builds power from the ground up.
The Councilman's Office
In 2017, Hanif took a job in the office of Brad Lander, the City Council member representing the 39th district. The district covered some of Brooklyn's most desirable neighborhoods: Park Slope with its brownstones and stroller-pushing parents, Carroll Gardens with its Italian American heritage, Cobble Hill with its boutiques and restaurants. It also included Kensington, Hanif's home neighborhood, which remained more working-class and more diverse.
Lander hired Hanif initially as his liaison to the Bangladeshi community. It was a natural fit—she spoke Bengali, understood the community's concerns, and had credibility from her years of organizing work. Eventually, she became his director of organizing and community engagement, overseeing the office's connections to all the district's various constituencies.
One case would stick with her. A Bangladeshi woman in the district was trapped in a forced marriage. The practice, while illegal in New York and officially discouraged in Bangladesh, persists in some immigrant communities where traditional expectations clash with individual rights. Hanif helped the woman escape the situation.
The experience crystallized something for her. Change required more than organizing from the outside. Sometimes you needed to be in the room where decisions were made.
Running for Council
By late 2019, Lander faced term limits. Under New York City's rules at the time, council members could serve only two four-year terms before having to step down or seek another office. Lander chose to run for City Comptroller, a citywide position that oversees the city's finances and pension funds.
His departure opened up the 39th district seat. It was, as the political news site Gotham Gazette noted, something of a "political launching pad." Bill de Blasio had held the seat before becoming mayor. Lander was moving up to comptroller. Whoever won would inherit a district with engaged voters, robust civic organizations, and a history of producing citywide leaders.
Seven candidates entered the Democratic primary. In Brooklyn's 39th district, the Democratic primary is effectively the general election—the area is so overwhelmingly Democratic that Republican candidates rarely mount serious challenges.
Hanif's main competition came from Brandon West, an activist who shared many of her policy positions. Both ran on left-wing platforms calling for expanded social services, reduced police funding, and stronger tenant protections. The distinction between them was more about coalition than ideology.
West secured the endorsement of the Democratic Socialists of America, often abbreviated as DSA—a socialist organization that had grown dramatically after Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign and had elected several members to office, most notably Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Hanif was backed by the Working Families Party, a progressive but somewhat more establishment-friendly group with deep roots in labor unions and community organizations.
Ocasio-Cortez, in an unusual move, endorsed both candidates.
New York City had recently adopted ranked-choice voting for primaries. Under this system, voters rank candidates in order of preference rather than choosing just one. If no candidate wins a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their supporters' second-choice votes are redistributed. The process repeats until someone has a majority.
On election night in June 2021, Hanif led with 32 percent to West's 23 percent. Neither had a majority, so the ranked-choice process would determine the winner. When the final count came in two weeks later, Hanif had 57 percent to West's 43 percent.
In November, she cruised to victory with 89 percent of the vote in the general election. The first Muslim woman. The first Bangladeshi American. The first woman ever to represent the 39th district.
A Progressive in Power
Once in office, Hanif quickly established herself as one of the council's most progressive members. She became co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, a group of like-minded council members who push for left-leaning policies. She also affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, the same organization that had endorsed her opponent.
Her legislative record reflects her priorities. By December 2024, she had cosponsored more than 800 bills and passed 11 as lead sponsor. Among her successes: the NYC Abortion Rights Act, which codified abortion protections at the city level following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade; Universal Curbside Composting, which expanded the city's food waste collection program; and the Workers Bill of Rights, which established new protections for employees.
These achievements came amid the sometimes tedious work of city government—attending community board meetings, responding to constituent complaints about potholes and parking, navigating the complex relationships between council members, the mayor's office, and city agencies.
The Housing Question
Few issues in New York City politics generate more passion than housing. The city faces a severe shortage—vacancy rates hover around 1 percent, rents consume enormous portions of residents' incomes, and many families are one missed paycheck away from homelessness. The solution, according to most economists, is simple: build more housing. But in practice, every proposed building faces opposition from neighbors worried about shadows, traffic, character of the neighborhood, or the vague but powerful sentiment that their block should stay exactly as it is.
Hanif has navigated this terrain carefully, sometimes frustrating allies on both sides.
In 2022, she intervened in a rezoning in Gowanus, a neighborhood undergoing dramatic transformation from an industrial area centered on a heavily polluted canal to a mixed-use zone with residential buildings. A proposed development would have allowed 95-foot, nine-story buildings. Hanif pushed to reduce the limit to 55 feet and five stories.
The decision had consequences. Under New York's Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program, developers are required to include affordable units when they exceed certain size thresholds. Smaller buildings often fall below these thresholds, meaning fewer affordable apartments get built. Critics argued Hanif was prioritizing the concerns of homeowners—often wealthier and whiter than renters—over the city's desperate need for housing.
A similar dynamic played out in 2024 with the Arrow Linen Supply Company site, an industrial property where a developer proposed residential buildings. The proposal sparked fierce neighborhood debate. A group called Housing Not Highrises demanded a nine-story height limit. At a public hearing, 35 people testified against the project and 33 testified in favor.
Hanif ultimately supported the project—but only after negotiating changes. The buildings were reduced from 13 to 10 stories. The affordable housing component increased from 25 percent to 40 percent. It was the kind of compromise that left purists on both sides unsatisfied but that reflected the messy reality of urban politics.
Later that year, Hanif voted for "City of Yes," a comprehensive housing plan championed by Mayor Eric Adams that loosened zoning restrictions across the city. The plan represented a significant shift. For years, many progressive politicians had opposed new development, viewing it as a driver of gentrification and displacement. But faced with an escalating housing crisis, some progressives had begun to change their minds. Building housing might not solve every problem, but not building housing would certainly make things worse.
Public Safety and Police
If housing generates passion, policing generates fury.
The New York Police Department is enormous—roughly 35,000 officers, with a budget exceeding $5 billion. It is larger than the armies of many countries. After George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis in 2020, protesters across the country called to "defund the police"—a slogan that meant different things to different people but generally involved shifting money from policing to social services like mental health care, housing, and education.
Hanif embraced this position. In 2023, she led an effort by the Progressive Caucus to reduce NYPD funding. She asked all caucus members to sign a statement of principles committing to "do everything we can to reduce the size and scope of the NYPD and the Department of Correction."
The demand proved too much for some. Fifteen members left the caucus rather than sign.
The politics of policing cut close to home in 2022 when a homeless man killed a dog in Prospect Park. The dog's owner and other constituents approached Hanif seeking what they described as a "public safety response." A staff member in Hanif's office reportedly told a reporter that involving police would only escalate the situation.
The incident became a flashpoint. David Yassky, a former council member who had represented a neighboring district and considered himself a progressive, was so disturbed by Hanif's response that he supported her opponent in the 2025 primary. When challenged during that campaign, Hanif stood by her skepticism of police, pointing to the size of the NYPD budget compared to other city services.
The debate reflects a genuine philosophical divide. One view holds that public safety requires police who can respond to dangerous situations, arrest criminals, and maintain order. Another view holds that police often escalate conflicts, that their presence in communities of color does more harm than good, and that the vast resources devoted to policing would be better spent addressing root causes of crime like poverty, addiction, and mental illness.
Hanif clearly falls into the second camp. Whether voters in her district agree is tested at each election.
Israel, Palestine, and the Boundaries of Progressive Politics
No issue has been more explosive for Hanif than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
She is an outspoken supporter of Palestinian rights and a sharp critic of Israel. This position is common among left-wing activists but can be politically perilous in New York, home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel. The city's politics have long reflected strong support for Israel across party lines.
In 2021, Hanif liked and retweeted a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that read "Globalize the Intifada." The word "intifada" comes from Arabic and literally means "shaking off." It refers to Palestinian uprisings against Israeli occupation—violent periods that included suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians. To many Jewish observers, "globalize the intifada" sounds like a call for worldwide attacks on Jews.
Hanif deleted the post and apologized, saying she recognized the phrase was "antagonistic, discriminatory and hurtful to many Jewish people."
The conflict escalated dramatically in October 2023 when Hamas, the militant group controlling Gaza, launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people and taking hundreds hostage. Israel responded with a devastating military campaign in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and created a humanitarian catastrophe.
The war created agonizing divisions. Supporters of Israel emphasized Hamas's atrocities and the country's right to defend itself. Supporters of Palestinians pointed to the massive civilian death toll and what many characterized as collective punishment. Both sides accused the other of supporting terrorism or genocide, depending on which direction you were looking.
Hanif took a clear side. She was arrested alongside State Senator Jabari Brisport at a Manhattan rally calling for an immediate ceasefire, organized by Within Our Lifetime—a pro-Palestinian group—and the Democratic Socialists of America. She described Israel's military actions as "genocide." In spring 2024, she voiced support for student protesters at Columbia University who had established an encampment demanding the university divest from companies doing business with Israel.
She voted against a City Council resolution declaring April 29 as "End Jew Hatred Day"—one of only six council members to oppose the measure, which passed overwhelmingly. Critics accused her of failing to respond to rising antisemitism in her district.
During the 2024 presidential primary, Hanif endorsed the "Leave It Blank" campaign, which encouraged voters to submit blank ballots rather than vote for President Joe Biden. The campaign was a protest against Biden's military support for Israel. Other prominent progressives joined her, including State Senator Brisport and Assembly Members Zohran Mamdani and Marcela Mitaynes.
Her stance on Israel and Palestine motivated significant efforts to unseat her in the 2025 primary. Maya Kornberg, a researcher at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice—a respected legal and policy organization—launched a challenge. But Hanif retained support from key allies: Ocasio-Cortez endorsed her again, as did Brad Lander, now city comptroller, and Zohran Mamdani.
Perhaps surprisingly, she also received support from housing development PACs—political action committees that support candidates who favor building more housing. Groups called Abundant New York and People for Public Space backed her, citing her vote for the "City of Yes" plan. It was an unusual coalition: pro-Palestinian progressives and pro-development housing advocates, united behind a candidate who had found ways to appeal to both.
On primary night, with more than 90 percent of votes counted, Hanif led with nearly 70 percent.
The Shape of a Political Life
Shahana Hanif is 33 years old. She is married to Abdullah Younus. She represents a district that has launched multiple politicians to higher office. If patterns hold, she may not remain a city council member forever.
Her career illustrates several truths about American politics in the 2020s.
First, identity matters. Being the first Muslim woman and first Bangladeshi American on the New York City Council isn't just symbolic—it shapes what issues she prioritizes, what communities trust her, and what perspectives she brings to debates.
Second, coalition-building is complicated. Hanif has managed to hold together supporters who might disagree with each other intensely—housing advocates and anti-gentrification activists, pro-Palestinian progressives and mainstream Democrats, civil libertarians skeptical of police and residents worried about public safety.
Third, taking strong positions has costs. Her stance on Israel and Palestine has made her a target. Her approach to policing alienates some constituents. Her housing decisions satisfy no one completely. But taking strong positions also builds loyalty among those who share her views.
Fourth, local politics matters more than people often realize. City council members make decisions about zoning, police funding, social services, and countless other issues that affect daily life far more directly than most federal legislation. The debates playing out in the 39th district—about housing, public safety, and America's role in international conflicts—are versions of debates happening across the country.
Hanif's career began with a lupus diagnosis that forced her to confront the inadequacies of the healthcare system. It led her through community organizing, tenant advocacy, and legislative politics. Where it leads next remains to be seen. But the seventeen-year-old who learned hard lessons about navigating systems has become someone who helps shape those systems—for better or worse, depending on who you ask.