Helen Gym looks to be Philadelphia’s activist mayor | Mayorsrace

“I think I’m a Philadelphian,” she said at the end of our interview in early April. “I’ve been here since I was 18.”

While many Philadelphians venerate the city’s history, warts and all, Gym has made it her mission to change some of that in pursuit of a more equitable future.

Gym came back to Philadelphia after a short stint working at a newspaper in Ohio, but left after being “pretty terribly harassed.” She and her now-husband Bret Flarehty returned to pursue advanced degrees, Bret going to law school and Helen returning to Penn for a master’s in language acquisition, completed in 1996.

During grad school, Gym worked for a year as a teacher at Lowell Elementary School in Olney. Gym recalls taking the 47 bus from her home in Chinatown to her job everyday.

“You can see the city’s vitality in the 35, 40 minute ride to Chinatown, and one thing I knew is I could always see the vibrancy of the neighborhoods, and I always thought that this was a city that held people down,” she recalled. “It’s not a city of poor people, it’s a city that keeps people poor, and that’s why I’ve always been very purposeful about activating communities, organizing collectively for change.”

Gym has run this campaign largely on her body of work, which is impressive even in this crowded field. She left teaching after news articles ran about her school packing African American students into crowded classrooms to free up resources for Asian Americans and went into activism, published reports said. Her work helped keep the Phillies stadium and a Foxwoods casino out of the Chinatown neighborhood. Now her daughter Taryn, who followed her parents to Penn, is fighting against the proposed Sixers stadium on East Market Street that might affect the neighborhood. Gym has been criticized for wavering on the issue during the campaign, even suggesting the arena wouldn’t open until her second term ended in 2032.

Gym spent years working as an advocate for public school students, taking on racism at South Philadelphia High School, fighting split grades that have two grades levels in one classroom at Jenks Elementary School and even helping launch a charter school in Chinatown. She won her first term as an at-large councilmember in 2015 and finished with the most votes in the 2019 general election for a second term.

When asked how this campaign has been different from her previous runs for public office, Gym responded, “It’s putting everything together in a big vision for the city. It’s talking in a time when people are experiencing fear, and disinvestments and violence in communities that has really come home. Really the path forward is about investing in people, and the race not being about one person or a platform, but a body of work over many years.”

While in Council, Gym championed many progressive causes and successfully led significant legislation into becoming law. In 2018, she was behind the Fair Workweek Act, which mandated employers give workers more notice for schedule changes and certainty around their shifts. During the pandemic, she led the push for eviction protections, keeping thousands in their apartments and preventing predatory rent hikes. She has fought against asbestos lead pipes in schools, the closing of neighborhood libraries and worked to bring nurses and counselors back to schools.

Her vision for the city focuses on reinvesting in communities and providing new opportunities. She announced a ten-year, $10 billion “Green New Deal” for the city’s schools, rebuilding and upgrading facilities with more eco-friendly infrastructure. Schools will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. , keeping students safer and busier. Gym wants to bring guaranteed jobs and increases in city services to the most violent neighborhoods in Philadelphia, offering to do more weekly trash pickups in some zip codes and clean up vacant lots. While she has supported safe injection sites – or “overdose prevention sites,” as she’s referred to them – she wants to see them introduced as part of a “holistic vision” that must include community support.

“I’m running for mayor to make sure that Philadelphia changes everything, and that we gear our city government towards the needs of the people” instead of simply following previous budgetary priorities, she said.

Gym said he plans to deliver “a needs-based budget” that will generate new opportunities for development.

“When we actually improve people’s health care, when we educate our young people, when we build housing that can be sustainable and long-term for individuals,” Gym said, “we’re writing a blueprint for a new city and a new nation.”

Over the years, Gym has developed a strong following among progressives, many of whom are white-collar workers from outside the city, who are quick to defend her on social media. She has earned local endorsements from the likes of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and those representing museum workers, along with progressive wards and State Sen. Nikhil Savil. Her campaign has received the most contributions from those inside the city for the most recent reporting period. She’s also earned endorsements from progressives across the country from Boston Mayor Michelle Wu to the Jane Fonda Climate PAC.

Gym has also drawn the ire of many long-time residents, especially with her attacks on former Mayor Frank Rizzo and previous administrations. She is quick to call out “disinvestments” from previous mayors but hasn’t been specific in her claims.

Her tenure in Philadelphia has not been without ruffled feathers and controversy. Gym’s decision to not recuse herself from a 2019 vote on regulations to limit the promotional activity of pharmaceutical companies (her husband, attorney Bret Flaherty, serves as a counsel for AmeriSource Bergen, one of the pillmakers involved in subsequent opioid-related lawsuits) became one of the votes against the failed legislation.

Earlier this year, she protested against the Union League honoring Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, then was seen entering the private club days later to meet with potential supporters. After claiming her campaign wasn’t beholden to commercial interests via fundraising, Philadelphia Magazine’s Ernest Owens found another AmeriSource Bergen executive made maximum donations to her every year since 2019. After bringing attention to State Representative Amen Brown meeting with then-Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz last year, Brown returned the “receipt” by alerting the Fox 29 debate audience that Gym met with Sixers minority owner David Adelman while claiming she was opposed to the new arena. During the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists forum, Jeff Brown called her “the queen of making stuff up” during an exchange pitting Brown’s commercially-driven vision of better housing versus Gym’s people-driven plans. Gym called him an “angry man,” showing the vitriol her supporters sometimes offer in response to critics on social media.

Gym has campaigned and worked with great joy for years. She smiles through her answers and has a positive demeanor when sharing her vision. She is also a fierce advocate for her causes, even getting arrested in 2021 as part of a protest against the state’s funding for schools that short-changed Philadelphia. While the school district and its supporters won a lawsuit to change the formula, one wonders how her fire will affect her dealings with Republicans in the state capital.