Husein currently works as an executive with local nonprofit PhillyBOLT after years of previously working in the Pennsylvania State Senate.
By Jensen Toussaint. On September 22, 2026. Edited by Nigel Thompson.
(Photo: Gabriela Watson-Burkett/Inti Media)
Growing up, Jude Husein never envisioned one day being in or even running for public office. In fact, it was the complete opposite. “I’m an agitator of government,” Husein recalled during a recent interview with Inti Media.
Fast forward and she’s currently running as a candidate for one of Philadelphia’s at-large City Council spots. The decision to run is a deeply personal one, and serves as just the latest chapter of a journey that has been built on community organizing, public service, advocacy, and a strong belief that government should move at the speed the community needs it to.
Humble beginnings and a Philly identity
Born in Palestine and raised in Philadelphia, Husein spent much of her childhood living in a tiny North Philly rowhome that was “maybe 750 square feet,” where she shared a room with her three older siblings. She recalled her living room constantly being packed with random people.
“Come to find out, my mom was organizing grassroots leaders and fundraising for community organizations,” said Husein.
Those experiences planted the seeds for Husein, as she also started community organizing at just 7 years old and continues to this day. Philly is a big part of Husein’s identity, as she’s a fourth-generation Philadelphian. Attending Moffitt Elementary, George Washington High School, and later the Community College of Philadelphia, Husein has been intentional about staying in and giving back to the very city that raised her.
“I’m a proud Philadelphian, I’m a lifelong Philadelphian,” she said. “I had the opportunity to leave Philadelphia [and] I chose absolutely not to. That’s how Philadelphia I am, and how much I love this city.”
Husein reading to Kindergartners on Read Across America Day. (Photo courtesy of Jude Husein)
A community organizer at heart
At a young age, Husein often accompanied her mother to various kinds of meetings, including interfaith groups, zoning discussions, and more. Her mother had a refrain that still holds true today: “One day, you’ll thank me.” Before long, Husein started taking her mother’s place at some of the meetings and helping organize for local projects.
Some Saturdays meant helping paint the outside of a mosque or the inside of a synagogue. Other times, it meant patching a cracked ceiling. Whatever the project, the day always ended around a shared community dinner where a table of neighbors who didn’t necessarily look alike still showed up for each other. After years of community organizing, Husein came to realize a common theme starting to form.
“We were Philadelphia and we were a community,” she said. “It didn’t matter what you looked like. We all had a central theme of taking care of each other because that’s what we’re obligated to do.”
While attending the Community College of Philadelphia like the rest of her siblings before her, Husein had to work multiple jobs to get through before transferring to La Salle University. At La Salle, Husein found herself the only Muslim student at a campus peace conference. It was an experience she calls a testament to how communities don’t need to share the same beliefs to connect. She later returned to La Salle for a master’s degree, deciding that as a woman of color and a working organizer, she needed the credential to stay competitive.
A foray into politics
Upon starting her career, Husein dedicated much of it to youth workforce development and within the nonprofit space. While working at Children’s Hospital, she recalled hearing about State Sen. Art Haywood staging a sit-in against then-Mayor Jim Kenney.
“One thing about me,” said Husein. “If I want to get something done, if I want to talk to somebody, I’m going to get it done, and I’m going to find this person.” She got in touch with Haywood’s office and later began an internship that changed the trajectory of her career.
In more than four years working in the State Senate, Husein led advocacy efforts across Pennsylvania, namely protecting Black and Brown students from racial discrimination and harassment, advocating for higher wages, and creating avenues to place Philadelphians in higher-paying jobs. The latter of which is paramount due to the fact that Pennsylvania’s minimum wage has stood at $7.25 since 2009, while Philadelphia has long held the title of the nation’s poorest big city.
“If we just take 15,000 working Philadelphians and take them up just one tax bracket, we’re able to get out of that spot.”
Husein as a panelist for the Netroots National Conference. (Photo courtesy of Jude Husein)
Developing change agents at PhillyBOLT
Since 2022, Husein has been involved with PhillyBOLT (Build Our Lives Together), an organization that has allowed her to go back to her roots in youth programming.
Founded in 2021, PhillyBOLT is a nonprofit that aims to provide Philadelphia youth and adults with the tools and resources to become leaders within their communities.
“We really believe that every neighborhood should thrive, led by the people living there because these people walk those blocks, they breathe that air, they go to those schools,” said Husein. “They're the closest to the problems so they’re the best students to solve these problems,” she added. PhillyBOLT partners with several local high schools on a summer fellowship program with the goal of empowering youth and students to become change agents.
As interim executive director at BOLT, Husein’s role spans programming and implementation, facilitating in partner schools, and — her favorite part — spending Saturdays out in the city with grassroots youth leaders. Working with countless youth has helped Husein realize that young people don’t need to be told what to believe; they already arrive with strong opinions. What they need are the tools to flesh out that thinking and turn it into real, tangible change.
Earlier this summer, Husein made the decision to announce her candidacy for Philadelphia City Council. She’s running for one of the seven city council at-large seats that serve as citywide representatives. They serve alongside 10 district councilmembers that represent specific parts of the city to make up the 17-member body of City Council.
Husein loves executing solutions to problems, saying that’s the exact role of an elected official. “I want to get things done. I want to be in community with all kinds of people. I’m an activist, I’m a change maker … I’m a Gen Zer, I’m an immigrant, I’m a woman. I am all of these things that I think government should embody and protect and empower.”
For years, she has felt that these things have been missing in city government.
“I decided that I’m going to run for City Council because we need people who are willing to do the job all year round and [are] really willing to deliver meaningful results,” she said. “We can’t keep doing the same things and praying that it’s different. It’s simply not working anymore.”
Husein’s stint in the State Senate taught her two lessons she believes would translate directly to city government: the importance of talking to all kinds of people, and meeting the needs of the moment. While some who run for office do so with the belief that they have all the answers, Husein’s mindset is to bring people to the table who aren’t normally there.
“We tend to think that government knows what it’s doing, but they simply don’t if people don’t share,” she said.
If elected, Husein plans to bring a collaborative approach that ensures that residents know the government is available to them when they need it, not just during a Thursday morning City Council session.
“It means actually being in the community, speaking with the community before passing a piece of legislation, bringing stakeholders that are directly impacted,” she continued. “These are some of the things that can make government really accessible.” Another key component is appropriating funds that ensure there is accountability and the funds that are being appropriated go towards where they are supposed to.
“Leadership means being bold, it means sometimes saying things that are not popular, that are not mainstream. It means actively listening … showing up even when it’s uncomfortable,” she said. It means sometimes not having an opinion, but really just listening. It means empowering people even when you’re not at the forefront.”
Husein presenting to Friends of the Wissahickon the importance of public parks and ways to invest further to support parks around the city (Photo courtesy of Jude Husein)
Addressing Philadelphia’s biggest challenges
Affordability, public safety, sanitation, transportation: she says all these issues are interconnected, determining whether residents can afford to remain in the city. When it comes to cost of living, she believes Philadelphia should look more closely at how other cities and states are addressing rising grocery and housing costs — pointing to New Jersey, where grocery stores are restricted from surging prices on items simply because demand spikes, as one model worth studying.
She’s also weighing ideas such as community grocery stores, stronger support for community gardens, and more tangible approaches to affordable housing.
“We can’t displace people,” Husein said. “Our neighbors are the backbone of our economy and our city.”
The same sentiment extends to the city’s immigrant communities. Husein currently organizes weekly vigils protesting ICE activity she says has “brutalized” communities across the city and the Commonwealth, work she plans to carry on if elected to City Council. More specifically, as a councilmember she would heavily advocate for Philadelphia to remain a welcoming city and work across levels of government to protect residents amid concerns over federal immigration enforcement. Like many of the issues, this is personal to her.
“I’m an immigrant. I come from a family of immigrants. Our immigrants are hardworking. They’re contributors to this beautiful city… we have to protect them at all costs, just like we protect any Philadelphian.”
Affordability, in her view, is also tied to wages. Harkening back to her previous work in workforce development at the state level, Husein believes the city needs to do a better job of mobilizing economic mobility and creating clearer pathways into higher-paying jobs, adding that no one should have to work three jobs to get through life and working one job shouldn’t be a luxury.
“I think we all have a shared vision of [how] Philadelphia should be the greatest city in the state, and it can be. But we have to stop investing in things that are just simply not working,” she said.
Some of that thinking comes directly from the young people she works with at BOLT, where sanitation and public transit are constant topics of conversation. Students don’t want to walk to school past trash on the sidewalk or ride a dirty SEPTA car, she said, and many are hesitant to bike because they were never taught how, or don’t feel the city is safe enough to do so in.
“Young people are proud to be from the city, and we have to make sure that they continuously feel proud,” she said.
Husein also wants to see SEPTA made more reliable, accessible and affordable, and the city’s sanitation budget actually used proactively rather than waiting for a major event to prompt a cleanup.
Husein meeting with Power Interfaith to advance equitable and inclusive policy measures. (Photo courtesy of Jude Hesin)
A new generation in city council
If elected, Husein would become Philadelphia’s youngest and first Gen Z city councilmember. It’s a responsibility that Husein takes seriously and won’t shy away from. While she often may hear people say, wait your turn, Husein firmly believes her turn has already arrived.
“I want a government that delivers, and I’m willing to put in the work as I always have to ensure that it delivers for all people,” she said. Husein finds the prospect of becoming the youngest or first Gen Zer in city council a fun one that brings joy to the city. “We’ll talk about the tough stuff, but I think there’s a lot of beautiful things that happen in the city and a lot of beautiful people, and I think it's time to diversify,” she added.
As she enters the campaign trail, Husein plans to use her own diverse background as a key component of her approach to bringing solutions to the city’s problems.
“My organizing background, my youth workforce development background, my government background … really empowered me to think about how I can solve these problems because these are not theoretical to me. These are my lived experiences,” she said.
Asked for a final word to voters, Husein circled back to where she started — a lifelong Philadelphian who never planned on politics, now betting everything on the city that raised her.
“It’s time for some accountability,” she said. “It’s time to shake things up. It’s time to be bold. It’s time to do things that people have been scared to do. It’s time to say things that people have been scared to do. But what I do know is that if our city is not doing well, our people are not doing well. We are not doing well as government, and we’re going to change that.”