About Erik
Erik Bottcher is a dedicated public servant and activist who has devoted his life to progressive causes and to the betterment of the community he loves.
Now, he is running to represent our community on the New York City Council.
Erik believes that if we come together and rise to this moment, New York City’s best days are still ahead.
Growing up in a small town in the Adirondack Mountains as the only gay person he knew, Erik’s personal struggles with depression sparked in him a lifelong dedication to helping the most marginalized members of our society. His journey from a childhood in a remote area to a life of activism in New York City was profiled in a 2015 feature story cover story in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise titled “Erik Bottcher’s Fight for Equality.”
Erik's career in public service began in 2009 as the LGBTQ & HIV/AIDS Community Liaison at the New York City Council, where he organized grassroots campaigns on issues including transgender rights, hate crimes, housing for people with HIV/AIDS, and marriage equality. He helped develop groundbreaking initiatives against bullying in New York City public schools and to break down stigma against people living with HIV/AIDS.
In 2011, Erik was hired to help lead the fight for marriage equality in New York State by newly elected Governor Cuomo. As the Governor’s LGBTQ Community Liaison, Erik organized activists from Buffalo to Montauk in an unprecedented grassroots campaign to garner support for the Marriage Equality Act. That June, New York State made history as the largest state to permit same sex marriage.
In 2015, Erik joined the team of New York City Council Member Corey Johnson as his Chief of Staff. Since then, he has worked tirelessly for the residents of Council District 3, fighting for more green space, better schools, affordable housing, senior services, and more.
When Hartley House, the 115 year-old settlement house in Hell’s Kitchen, was threatened with closure, Erik worked with community leaders to come up with a plan to prevent its sale to private developers. When our State’s rent stabilization laws were being held up in Albany, Erik was arrested alongside tenant activists for blocking the entryway to the Governor's office.
When the COVID-19 crisis hit, Erik took action, building an expansive volunteer network that made weekly wellness calls to thousands of home-bound seniors and delivered tens of thousands of meals to food insecure residents across the district. He created a vaccine volunteer program that helped nearly 400 seniors get vaccination appointments. Additionally, he holds weekly community cleanups in the Village, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen.
Erik’s effective leadership style is reflected in these and countless other examples, as well as in the deep support his candidacy has received from hundreds of community leaders across Council District 3, organized labor, elected officials, tenant groups, healthcare groups, and more.
As a longtime member of the Village Independent Democrats and a co-founder of United Thru Action, a resistance group created in the days following the 2016 presidential election, Erik has been a fierce fighter for progressive values in electoral politics. He helped organize dozens of buses of volunteers that traveled to swing districts in Pennsylvania and beyond during the 2016 and 2018 election cycles, and was active in the fight to defeat the I.D.C., which gave Democrats true control over the New York State Senate. This year, on top of his own campaign for City Council, Erik organized weekly phone banks for 17 weeks to help ensure the defeat of the most dangerous president in American history. Over 1,000 volunteers participated, making thousands of phone calls to voters in swing states.
Times of crisis call for proven leadership, and the COVID-19 crisis has put New York City’s survival on the line. As our Council Member, Erik will
create affordable housing and work to end homelessness
fight for safe, livable and vibrant neighborhoods
help our small businesses reopen safely and succeed
work to root out the systemic racism that pervades society, including our criminal justice system
advocate for our children and world-class public schools
push for safer streets and better transportation options
Erik is a graduate of The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and was a Bohnett Leaders Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Senior Executives in State and Local Government program.