Representative Ritchie Torres is a fighter from the Bronx who has spent his entire life working for the community he calls home. Like many people in the South Bronx, poverty and struggle have never been abstractions to him, and he governs from a place of lived experience.
Ritchie’s mother single-handedly raised him, his twin brother, and his sister in a public-housing project. She paid the bills working minimum-wage jobs, which in the 1990s paid $4.25 an hour. While Ritchie grew up with mold, lead, leaks, and no reliable heat or hot water in the winter, he watched the government spend over $100 million dollars to build a golf course across the street for Donald Trump. In 2013, at the age of 25, Ritchie became New York City’s youngest elected official and the first openly L.G.B.T.Q. person elected to office in the Bronx.
We owe a debt of gratitude to our nation’s veterans, who have put their lives on the line to protect our country. I am proud to represent nearly 40,000 veterans and their families who call the Bronx home. We must ensure that veterans receive world-class health care to meet their specific needs and that they have meaningful employment and educational opportunities. I’m particularly committed to eradicating veteran homelessness and addressing veterans’ mental health and well-being needs.