Representing a ‘district that feels like my home’: In Conversation with Rep. Rick Krajewski

Can you share a little bit about your background?

I've lived in Philadelphia since I was 18. I’m originally from the South Bronx in New York City and grew up in a single-parent, working-class, Black household. My mom helped me apply for scholarships, and I jumped through several hoops before eventually ending up at the University of Pennsylvania, where I pursued an undergraduate degree in engineering.

What brought you to politics?

The real clicking moment that brought me to politics was the realization that as a young black man that came from poverty, I was very fortunate and privileged to be able to get this kind of golden ticket - to get the scholarship that then let me go to the good high school, which then let me go to the good college and get a good job. There were a lot of my peers and people in my community that were not afforded that opportunity.

After working as an engineer for a couple of years, I became interested in educational access. Before I turned to organizing, I was drawn to teaching and social work, thinking about how to address the issue of systemic inequality when it comes to education access. Reflecting on my own experiences, and how they differed from others I grew up with, eventually led me to politics.

How do you envision politics creating long-term change in communities, specifically in West Philadelphia?

I don't think there's a path towards long-term change that doesn't involve politics. I think it's the responsibility of the government to address the community’s issues and invest in solutions. When we don't rely on the public to do that and instead refer to private entities to solve these issues, we end up creating more imbalance and a system that's more beholden to private motives versus the public good. In West Philadelphia, we see that here with university-driven investment, gentrification, and all the ways that private investors can disrupt the community when we try to rely on them to dissolve issues. This is why a community-focused policy is important.

How is your office working to address these issues?

There are a few things that I think the state and government must do to try to address these problems. Firstly, we just have to completely change the way we fund education because a lot of the issues we see start from school. With schools that aren't being invested in, we’re basically setting people up for failure from the start. The solution is to invest in children from the get-go.

Secondly, housing prices here are crazy. Even as someone who now makes an above-average salary in the House of Representatives, I still am not confident that I’ll be able to buy a house. It's just such an inaccessible market for a lot of people because it’s a market. Housing is a human right - I think we should really redefine how we think about public housing and social housing. It’s not just for people who are disadvantaged, but it should just be for people, period. I think if the state could invest more in public housing, then we could also regulate housing, and do a better job of making it affordable. It wouldn't create the kind of situation we have now where it's hard to afford a home, or it's easy to be evicted because of the rising rent costs.

Another issue we deal with in this community is gun violence. It's a huge issue no matter who you are at this point. There are plenty of causes for it, in addition to a lack of affordable housing and education - we have stagnant wages, a lack of access to good jobs, as well as lacking emotional and mental health support for people. It's clear to me that if we were to actually invest in good jobs, housing, education, and mental health support, we could reduce gun violence. I don't think you're ever going to completely eradicate gun violence because people can access guns, but I think if we treated people like people, we would see a lot of progress.

How does your identity as an abolitionist impact or influence your role as a state representative?

It's an interesting dynamic I find myself in where, coming in as an organizer, I wanted to tear down the system. In real life now, though, I'm part of the system. I'm literally within the system. For me, being an abolitionist as an elected official means thinking about how to use my presence in the legislature to transform the way we think about criminal justice, accountability, compassion, responsibility, and harm.

I've found a way to be able to do that in a legislature that I’m proud of where I have been a really vocal voice in our democratic caucus around not voting for bills that we know will just perpetuate mass incarceration, like mandatory minimums, and measures that target people for crimes of poverty, or mental health issues. In previous sessions in the legislature, I believe that these are bills that probably would have been passed unanimously. But because myself and Senator Saval, and even individuals like Summer Lee have been in the legislature, we have been able to move members to think deeply about why these bills are not in the interest of public safety or justice. And, I've seen progress - I've seen people move on rethinking their versions of justice.