Meet Our People
Our Staff
Genesis Aquino Executive Director
Genesis Aquino joined NYS Tenants & Neighbors as the Executive Director in July 2021. She joins us with over 10 years of advocacy and community organizing experience. Her work has been rooted in social justice and focused on collective action, and advocacy to address the systems of oppression that most directly impact the various communities she serves.
Prior to joining Tenants & Neighbors, Genesis worked with Housing Court Answers, where she advocated to ensure fair treatment of unrepresented litigants in the Housing Courts & to expand access to legal representation for low-income New Yorkers. Also served on the Board of Directors of the Laundry Workers Center, as the chair of Brooklyn Community Board 7’ Housing Committee.
Genesis is a Brooklynite and a rent-stabilized tenant. She earned a bachelor's in social work & urban community development from CUNY.
Email: gaquino@tandn.org Phone: (212) 608-4320 ext. 400
Wanda Mercado Operations Manager
Wanda Mercado oversees the maintenance of the Tenants & Neighbors office and also plays an instrumental role in member services, providing information and referrals to low and moderate-income tenants in regulated and subsidized housing. Wanda previously worked for The New York City Council as a Scheduler and a Community Liaison to a Council Member and for a lobbyist firm. Wanda is currently pursuing her bachelor’s degree in public administration at Medgar Evers College. Wanda is a fluent Spanish speaker.
Email: wmercado@tandn.org Phone: 212-608-4320 ext. 314
Jorgy Flecha Director of Organizing
Jorgy first started organizing in middle school with a local group named REBEL: Reaching Everyone By Exposing Lies. A teen-led group to teach others about the lies and deception of big tobacco companies.
Since then, he has been committed to making his community a better place. He has gone on to fight for same-sex marriage in his home state New Jersey, which led him to travel nationwide to red states fighting for lgbt non-discrimination laws.
For the last 10 years, he has been committed to organizing tenants throughout NYC. Some of his highlights are working with The Crown Heights Tenant Union and West Side Neighborhood Alliance.
Aside from organizing Jorgy is a dog dad to his poodle Cotto and when he’s not organizing you can find him somewhere under the sun!
Email: jflecha@tandn.org Phone: 212-6084320 Ext. 300
Rebecca Nicol Tenant Organizer
Originally hailing from Iowa, Rebecca brings over five years of experience organizing around climate, labor, and mutual aid issues in Phoenix and New Hampshire. She cares deeply about building sustainable, flourishing urban spaces through people power and is excited to put these values into practice as a Tenant Organizer.
Rebecca holds a BA in Geography with a minor in Mandarin Chinese from Dartmouth College. She resides in Brooklyn, where she spends her free time crocheting, writing, and trying new recipes.
Email: rnicol@tandn.org Phone: 212-6084320 Ext. 306
Our Board Members
Most of the NY State Tenants & Neighbors Coalition Board members live in regulated, subsidized, or formerly subsidized housing. Ten of the Board members are elected by the general membership at general membership meetings. People who stand for election to the Coalition Board typically have already made significant contributions to the organization through service on one of our Tenant Leadership Committees. The other five Board members, mostly staff of allied organizations, are appointed by the elected Board members.
Board Officers
Yolande Cadore President
Yolande has spent the last twenty years working with grassroots organizations in New York City and nationally. Early in her career, she worked as an organizer with the Working Families Party, ACORN, and Tenants & Neighbors.
Recognizing the correlation between degraded environments, including poor quality housing and poor health, led Yolande to WE ACT for Environmental Justice where she was the Director of Community Organizing for six years. As Director, she worked with West Harlem leaders to develop the organization’s outreach, organizing, and advocacy campaigns.
Additionally, she served as the National Field Director at The Praxis Project. From 2010 to 2015 she was the Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Drug Policy Alliance.
Yolande holds an undergraduate degree in Urban Policy and Advocacy, a certificate in Non-Profit Management from Columbia Business School–Institute for Not-for-Profit Management, and is a graduate of the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. She recently completed a doctoral program at St. John Fisher College.
Eric Alugas Vice President
Eric lives in a Rent Stabilized apartment in Harlem. Eric has been involved with T&N since 2007 when he organized a tenants’ coalition to preserve affordable housing in Harlem. Eric is a longtime resident of Harlem.
He has been a board member since 2017.
Katy Bordonaro Treasurer
Katy is the longest-serving member of the Tenants & Neighbors board; I joined the Board in 1999. Currently, I am the treasurer of the board.
I live at West Village Houses, a former Mitchell-Lama rental that became an affordable Article XI co-op in 2006 and transitioned to market rate in 2020.
Preserving affordable housing through the good work of T&N is an essential benefit to New York City.
Mitchell-Lama Residents Coalition.
Board Members
Ellen Davidson
Ellen has been a Board member since 2002. She lives in Brooklyn. Ellen is a housing attorney with the Legal Aid Society with an expertise in rent stabilization and federally subsidized housing.
Legal Aid Society
Jackie Peters Secretary
Jackie is a retired New York City teacher.
I lived in George Washington Houses, NYCHA, located in East Harlem for 13 years.
I then moved to a Mitchell-Lama rental for 27 years.
When my landlord came out of the Mitchell-Lama program and raised the rent, I was priced out of my home and neighborhood.
I serve on the board of Tenants & Neighbors and also, as a Co-chair of the Mitchell-Lama Residents Coalition.
Carmen Ithier
Carmen is a resident of the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in a formerly Mitchell-Lama building where she fought with her neighbors to preserve its affordability. She has been a dedicated member of Tenants & Neighbors since 2002 and joined our board of directors in 2017. She is also an active member of the Mitchell-Lama Residents Coalition and a retired Social Worker.
Samathia Thompson
Samathia Thompson currently lives in the Morningside Heights Section of Manhattan and is a long-time advocate for residents living in federally subsidized housing. She has been a member of Tenants & Neighbors for over 30 years and was elected to the board of directors in 2018.
She is the Chair of her budding tenant association: the Morningside Heights Multi-Cultural Tenant Organization. She has been a fierce grassroots organizer and powerful voice for low and moderate-income tenants in her community, she enjoys grassroots fundraising and getting her neighbors involved in the movement to build tenant power
Charlotte Rodgers
Charlotte has been active with Tenants & Neighbors since 1991 when she was actively organizing with her neighbors to preserve the affordability of their building. Her leadership helped built strengthen the Medgar Evers Tenants Association, where she currently serves as president.
Charlotte believes that tenants’ voices MUST be heard. Her deep commitment to the preservation of affordable housing for low-income tenants led to her serving as the Treasurer and Regional Vice President of the National Alliance of HUD Tenants (NAHT), and from 2021-2022 served as the Chair of Tenants & Neighbors’ Board of Directors.
Charlotte is a retired employee from NYC Human Resources Administration, where she served for over 20 years, and enjoys contributing her experience and leadership as an active board member of Tenants & Neighbors.
Adolfo Abreu
Elected board member since 2022 - Adolfo is a lifelong Bronxite and community organizer that has fought for two decades alongside communities in the Northwest Bronx for tenant protections, restorative justice in schools, and development that invests and is owned by working-class people.
Adolfo started off his organizing journey as a youth leader in Sistas and Brothas United and later on became the Organizing Director of its parent organization, the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition. He has worked on several electoral campaigns including State Senator Gustavo Rivera's reelection campaigns.
Adolfo currently serves as Housing Campaigns Director for VOCAL-NY supporting organizers and members of the organization in running statewide and city-based campaigns centered on ending homelessness and the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Ellen Jones
Tenant leader at Hamilton Heights, A HUD tenant and advocate.
Elected board member since 2022
*Also on the Board of the NY State Tenants & Neighbors Information Service.