Shekar Krishnan is the NYC Council Member for District 25, Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, East Elmhurst, and Woodside, Queens, some of the most diverse immigrant communities in the world. He is the first Indian-American ever elected to the City Council in NYC history. Shekar is currently the Chair of the Council’s Committee on Oversight and Investigations, holding accountable anyone and anything that takes advantage of New Yorkers. In his previous term, Shekar served as the Chair of the Council’s Committee On Parks and Recreation, negotiating the highest budget ever for NYC Parks.
Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, and Woodside are home to thousands of essential workers—many of whom are immigrants—who move this city forward every day. In the Council, Shekar has championed workers’ rights, by passing legislation to decriminalize street vending and successfully leading the largest and strongest worker protection bill for Uber and Lyft drivers in the nation. He has also secured greatly needed resources for public hospitals like Elmhurst Hospital, including the first ever hand surgery clinic– a critical win for construction workers.
Shekar has also fought to preserve and expand public space in District 25, the Council district with the least amount of green space. Shekar pushed for the expansion of Paseo Park, the 26 blocks of pedestrian space in Jackson Heights that is the gold standard of open streets for NYC, and ushered in an affordable housing development in Elmhurst that brings the first-ever community pool and increased green space to the district.
Before his election to City Council, Shekar was a long-time community activist in Jackson Heights and Elmhurst and a civil rights lawyer fighting housing discrimination. Krishnan co-founded Communities Resist, a legal services organization that represents tenants and neighborhood coalitions. Before that, he was an attorney at Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A, directing the organization’s fair housing and tenant advocacy divisions. As a civil rights lawyer, Krishnan helped transform the City’s compliance with federal fair housing laws, leading the landmark Broadway Triangle litigation that successfully challenged a major rezoning under the Fair Housing Act.
Shekar is the son of immigrants from South India who made enormous sacrifices and worked tirelessly to build a life for their family in this country. He is also a father of two small children, who can often be seen biking or scooting up and down the open 34th Avenue in Jackson Heights, and husband to Zoe, an immigration public defender and reproductive justice advocate.