LinkedIn page<\/a>, which declared Romero \u201cOpen to Work,\u201d spelled out his current predicament \u2013 and linked to a GoFundMe page that went up Thursday and was titled \u201cHelp Brian Cover Rent After State Assembly Run.\u201d<\/p>\nRomero is a shoe-in for a Queens district near Mayor Mamdani\u2019s legislative stomping ground. brianr4ny\/Instagram<\/p>\n
\u201cAs many of you know, I had to leave my full time job in the legislature when I got on the ballot for our Assembly race,\u201d he pleaded in the since-deleted post. \u201cI\u2019m excited that we won and I saved for months to get by but I\u2019ve now depleted my savings as I\u2019m close to closing down some consulting gigs.\u201d<\/p>\n
His GoFundMe site said early Friday he had raised $1,095 out of $2,000 being sought. The first $50 donation was anonymous, which wouldn\u2019t be allowed for campaign contributions. The largest anonymous contribution was for $200.<\/p>\n
The online appeal got contributions from people who knew him and \u201canonymous\u201d donors, but Romero says he closed it and didn\u2019t take any of the money. Brian Romero\/Gofundme<\/p>\n
He said the online solicitation was \u201cto help navigate this next chapter\u201d and will be used to \u201ccover the rest of rent and groceries.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe support from friends, colleagues, and community members so far has been overwhelming, and we are deeply grateful,\u201d the pol added.<\/p>\n
But he abruptly closed down the online fundraiser Friday afternoon, after The Post started making inquiries.<\/p>\n
By Friday morning contributions had swelled to more than $1,000. Brian Romero\/Gofundme<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided to take it down. It was kind of done pretty quickly in consultation with some friends,\u201d he told the newspaper.<\/p>\n
He called it a \u201cmistake\u201d and said he didn\u2019t keep any of the money.<\/p>\n
Romero said he tried but failed to navigate an unemployment insurance system he calls \u201cbroken\u201d and says it makes him \u201cvery passionate\u201d about addressing that issue. <\/p>\n
The former legislative staffer, who last year made $106,469, said friends offered to help tide him over. brianr4ny\/Instagram<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to find sort of some gigs, but I don\u2019t know how other folks do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It wouldn\u2019t have been the first time he\u2019s gotten housing assistance. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been a renter. I lived in NYCHA [public housing] for about almost 15 years, actually\u201d before moving to a private apartment building,\u201d he told EpicCenterNYC in June.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI can\u2019t remember seeing something like this happen before,\u201d said Jordan Libowitz, vice president for communications of Citizens for Ethics in Washington.<\/p>\n
Once sworn in, Romero will pull down a handsome $142,000 annual salary, along with a $203 daily per diem when the Assembly is in session.<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s not likely to be homeless any time soon \u2013 thanks to the kindness of people he actually knows.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have friends I just reached out to directly who said, \u2018We\u2019ll take care of it.\u2019 They\u2019re just dear friends who know me, they know politics. They know sometimes these long breaks are really tough,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A socialist pol who is a shoo-in to represent part of Queens in the state Assembly whipped out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4241,10917,32384,13305,9,11,10,49,17566,51,50,87,122,564,1211,58],"class_list":["post-311852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-albany","tag-ethics","tag-gofundme","tag-midterm-elections","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-assembly","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-politics","tag-queens","tag-rent","tag-socialism","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}