At the very least you would have—instead of a mouthpiece for the small businesses association and the cops—a voice against criminalization and displacement, with the legitimacy of the mayor’s office.

What is the alternative? My city’s last progressive lib was defeated by a centrist fuck running on a campaign of “Fuck Homeless People.” In his capacity as Fire Commissioner or something he stopped the city’s not-police first response unit thing (they take 911 calls and stuff that are about homeless people and other stupid shit, instead of the police) from distributing tents and tarps. And now he’s running for mayor. Someone blew up a car in front of his house, which while funny is just free publicity for him.

And it’s not like other routes of “building power” have accomplished much, here anyways. There was a slight uptick in mutual aid organizing a couple years ago but it seems like people got bored with that. There’s been some good labor organizing. Lot of protests against the genocide in Gaza, some harm reduction orgs, but idk.