Elizabeth de León Bhargava ’95 is the daughter of Dominican immigrants, a lifelong public servant and a Binghamton University graduate with a legacy of helping others that continues today. She grew up in a close-knit home run by her mother, who taught her and her sisters the value of hard work and service.
At the age of five, the family’s home was destroyed by a fire. They were unhoused, vulnerable and had difficulty meeting the daily demands of work, school and life. However, the family was able to lean on the support of community groups and government agencies to find safe and secure housing. Despite her young age, de León Bhargava had a lot of feedback for government officials about how they could make the process for finding safe and secure housing better and more efficient.
“I had felt that when the government provided services, it was about checking a box and getting the job done," de León Bhargava said. "To me, there's a difference between getting the job done and doing it well."
At Binghamton, de León Bhargava lived in College-in-the-Woods and was a member of the Latin American Student Union, Phi Alpha Delta and NYPIRG. She also worked as an admissions tour guide, at the University Bookstore and as a salsa and merengue instructor for Off Campus College.
During her freshman year, de León Bhargava was asked to reflect on what the term rhetoric means. Her answer, “the ability to induce symbols for social cooperation”, was driven by her personal experience interacting with government. “I wanted to be a better advocate, having seen the importance of advocating for my family as a child.”
Since graduating, the same passion, values, and commitment to advocacy that de León Bhargava displayed at the University have led her to a career in public service
She served as New York state’s deputy secretary for Labor and Workforce. The first Latina to hold the position, she was responsible for labor and workforce policy and operations, impacting more than 9.6 million working Americans. She managed a portfolio of agencies operating with total budgets of more than $5 billion with the responsibility of regulating public- and private-sector labor and workforce matters. Her leadership enabled the growth of a diverse, inclusive and talented workforce, including more than 170,000 state workers. In addition, de León Bhargava led the optimization of multibillion-dollar safety net systems that help businesses stay productive and provide critical benefits to workers. Notably, she was integral in securing the state’s historic minimum hourly wage increase to $15, lifting the earnings of about a quarter of the state’s total workforce and resulting in $15.7 billion of direct economic gains. She also led the establishment of New York’s Paid Family Leave program.
Before serving as the deputy secretary for Labor and Workforce, de León Bhargava was deputy commissioner of the New York City Department of Small Business Services, where she supervised the largest business improvement district network in the country, with annual investments of more than $100 million. Prior to that, on behalf of the New York State Office of the Attorney General, she led investigations and prosecutions ensuring the preservation of civil rights and affordable housing, protecting survivors of human trafficking and supporting communities impacted by immigration fraud.
In May, de León Bhargava was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as assistant secretary for administration at the U.S. Department for Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In this role, she leads the department's disaster management and national security preparations and operations. She is also responsible for managing the 7,500-person agency’s human resources and, as HUD's chief acquisition officer, is responsible for approximately $8 billion in government contracts and 3.5 million square feet of space that spanning 58 locations across the country. She also serves on the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics.
"We give a lot of thought to policies and procedures but, at the end of the day, it's about the individual and the place they call home”, said de León Bhargava.
Redefining the agency’s day-to-day operations for a post-pandemic world is one policy that is a primary focus for de León Bhargava’s team. "We are thinking about what the future of work looks like for this agency," she said. "How do we get the best of the best to work for HUD? And what do they need to perform their jobs and deliver services? Working on the federal level, we must serve a diverse pool of people. Services we provide in New York City are very different from what we provide in a place like Wyoming."
On Binghamton's campus, she is still making a far-reaching impact. As a freshman, de León Bhargava co-founded the Juvenile Urban Multicultural Program, also known as J.U.M.P. Nation, which provides at-risk youth with a support network and tools to help them overcome socioeconomic barriers that might prevent them from going to college.
"J.U.M.P. Nation supports the younger generation in going to college,” said de León Bhargava. "I grew up in Washington Heights [Manhattan] and it was a difficult area to grow up in. When you don't have people in your family who went to college, you have no idea what that looks like. So, the idea is to expose kids to college.
“There are kids who have gone through the J.U.M.P. Nation program who are now at Binghamton and serving on the J.U.M.P. Nation board. In typical Binghamton fashion, you start with an idea and you have a group of students who take it and run with it. They've far surpassed the vision I had for J.U.M.P. Nation and it's one of the things I'm most proud of."
