The congressional candidate for Pennsylvania’s Third District says his top priorities are fighting poverty and bringing more federal resources to the city.

On the morning of March 18, his birthday, Dennis Mahoney pulled into the Planet Fitness parking lot on Columbus Boulevard expecting nothing more than a workout. Instead, he watched federal immigration agents take a husband into custody while his wife stood helplessly beside him in a panic; the daily bustle of a busy South Philadelphia shopping strip suddenly went still.

Mahoney stayed with the wife, and later met her son, Roosevelt. He connected the family with resources and called contacts at the Department of Homeland Security. “The agents said they had a warrant,” says Mahoney, “but they never read it to the man.” “I’ve traveled to dangerous conflict zones in different parts of the world. I’ve traveled to places where people have lost everything,” Mahoney said. “I’ve never felt so disturbed in my spirit.” For a man who has built a career walking into disasters like Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica, and wildfires in California, the scene left an aftershock.

In November, Mahoney will appear on the ballot as an independent candidate for Pennsylvania’s Third Congressional District, facing Democratic nominee Chris Rabb, the state representative who won a hard-fought May primary over State Sen. Sharif Street and Dr. Ala Stanford for the seat of retiring Congressman Dwight Evans. No Republican filed to run. An independent, he argues, would owe nothing to either party and could bargain for the city: “It gives us leverage to say we need resources back in Philadelphia, and if you want to earn our vote, you’ve got to give us what we need.” The Forward Party has endorsed his campaign.

Mahoney is an independent because he says he doesn’t want to engage in fights, but rather collaborate. “I don’t feel like I left a political party,” he said. “I feel like both political parties left me.”

The son of a mother who immigrated to Philadelphia from Trinidad and Tobago and a father born in West Philadelphia, Mahoney lives in South Philadelphia. To reach the ballot, his campaign gathered more than 9,000 petition signatures. The number was more, he says, than any congressional candidate in the country.

Dennis Mahoney spent four years as a cyber underwriter at a Fortune 500 insurance company, calculating the odds that corporations would be hacked. In 2017, he felt called to leave the private sector and lead community outreach at The District Church in Washington, D.C., working on affordable housing, keeping children out of foster care by supporting their mothers, and confronting the opioid epidemic. “My mother always told me, you’ve got one life to give,” he said. “I felt a strong calling to serve.”

In 2017, the hurricanes came, one after another, like waves that would not stop breaking. When Harvey flooded Texas and Maria devastated Puerto Rico, the church called on Mahoney to lead a volunteer team in disaster relief. After one mission came another, and another: North Carolina after Florence, Puerto Rico again. He worked to help rebuild in the areas most affected by the chaos of storms. He was briefing FEMA on what his teams were seeing on the ground. “Our job was just to be the glue across the city,” he said, “making relationships and connecting with people.”

Dennis Mahoney kept returning to Puerto Rico as emergency relief turned into long-term recovery. He worked directly with local pastors rebuilding their communities. Back in Philadelphia, at the University of Pennsylvania, he earned a master’s in organizational dynamics and later an Executive Master of Public Administration from Penn’s Fels Institute of Government.

He went on to work for Food for the Hungry, a relief and development organization working in 18 countries, on projects spanning education and economic development. He also founded a consulting firm, AOI Solutions, which stands for access and opportunity, that coordinates disaster response and partnerships for nonprofits, from Jamaica to Sudan. “It doesn’t matter if I was landing in Burundi or in Montego Bay,” he said of that work. “If you wanted to deliver results to the people, it was like, let’s roll up our sleeves.”

He wants to bring that spirit to a district he says is taken for granted. The Third Congressional District, which runs largely west of Broad Street through North, West and South Philadelphia, Center City and the Northwest. His central issue is poverty, in a city that has ranked among the poorest big cities in America for decades. “Philadelphians aren’t looking for a handout; they’re looking for a hand up,” he said. His signature proposal is to end the “benefits cliff” and restructure public assistance so families climbing out of poverty lose support gradually, not all at once.

He talks, too, about generational wealth and the tangled titles that quietly strip it away. Houses are often passed down through generations without a clear deed, until a death leaves relatives locked out of a home their grandparents paid for. “That’s a huge, huge problem in Philadelphia,” he said. He says his team has compiled a list of federal dollars that were “left on the table” and earmarked for Philadelphia but never claimed. From small business loans to education funding for a school district facing a deficit and school closures, Philadelphia needs the federal funding to support its growth.

Asked what he would do in his first hundred days, Mahoney said, “You’ve got to listen before you lead. He wants neighborhood advisory groups across the district to name their own needs so that he can carry them to Washington. “Germantown knows what Germantown needs. Mill Creek knows what Mill Creek needs. Strawberry Mansion knows what Strawberry Mansion needs.”

For Philadelphia’s Latino community, which includes South Philadelphia’s corridor, where a new generation is now reaching voting age, he points to small business loans, stronger schools, and an open door. “My job is to represent you and to listen,” he said. “I’m supposed to be a conduit and a bridge.” As the son of an immigrant, he added in a Hispanic Heritage Month greeting to Impacto readers, “I am just so grateful for the value that every single one of you brings to our city.”

The odds are steep, and Mahoney knows it. He likes to tell the story of Roger Banister, who ran the four-minute mile everyone said was impossible — and of the runners who poured through the door once it was open. “I don’t think we’re going to see it done in one election cycle,” he said. “But seeing our country come back and be united is what I want to see.”