Phara Souffrant Forrest represents the 57th Assembly District in Brooklyn, which includes the neighborhoods of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill as well as parts of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights. She was first elected in 2020.

Phara is the daughter of Haitian immigrants and a lifelong resident of the 57th District. She is a proud product of Brooklyn’s public school system, attending Philippa Schuyler Middle School and Benjamin Banneker Academy for Community Development. She then went on to attend SUNY Geneseo, where she majored in international relations, before obtaining an associate’s nursing degree at CUNY City Tech and a BSN at CUNY School of Professional Studies.

Her work as a nurse has allowed her to interact with patients in a variety of settings, from schools to public hospitals to ACS. Just before being elected to the Assembly, Phara worked as a maternal child health field nurse, caring for new mothers after they gave birth. Her work as a nurse inspired her to run for office to address the social determinants of health that affected her patients.

Phara is a rent-stabilized tenant and was president of her building’s tenant association before running for office. Tenant organizing, in particular the fight to pass the Housing Stability & Tenant Protection Act of 2019, was a major motivating factor in her decision to run for office and stand up for tenants like her across the state.

Since being elected, she has continued to champion the rights of tenants, as well as expanding access to healthcare and reforms to the carceral system. In her first term, she passed the Less Is More Act, which made the state’s supervision system more just and equitable. Since then, she has passed legislation to eliminate copays for insulin and led the fight to increase taxes on New York’s wealthiest residents. She believes that working-class New Yorkers deserve the resources to pursue a good life.

Phara lives in Crown Heights with her family.