Three Years, Five Boroughs, 200,000 Doors: A Report on Katal’s #ShutRikers Canvassing Project, September 2022–December 2025. Written by Katal staff. Published June 2026.
Katal’s organizing has always included canvassing – handing out flyers, knocking on doors, talking with people in the street – then working to get those new contacts involved. But when Eric Adams came into office in 2022 and immediately abandoned the city plan to close Rikers, we knew we had to build a larger base to hold the city accountable, and we launched a new canvassing project to do just that.
Over three years, we canvassed approximately 200,000 doors across all five boroughs. We canvassed at every major public housing complex in the city, from the Far Rockaways to Highbridge, from Cypress Hills to Stapleton and Astoria, and many more. We tabled at community centers, libraries, and senior centers. We canvassed at block parties and summer street fairs in Harlem, Brownsville, and the South Bronx. We held thousands of conversations with New Yorkers about what they want to see in their communities, about safety and justice, and about Rikers Island jail complex and why Katal and other groups are working to shut it down.
The report covers why we launched the project, where and how we did it, what it looked like day-to-day, and what we learned. The report is built around a detailed essay by our organizing director Melanie Dominguez, who directed the project, and includes a selection of daily canvassing reports from some of the more than 30 team members who participated across three years. The introduction, by Katal’s executive director gabriel sayegh, provides some historical background for the fight to shut Rikers, and places the report into the current context of backsliding democracy in the United States.
For those readers looking for an overview of the longstanding problems at Rikers, and the campaign to shut it down, check out our page about the campaign.