Maya Wiley
Level
Mayor
More Information
Campaign Site
2020 LID Questionnaire Response
Why are you running for Mayor?
I am committed to a New York City where every New Yorker can live with dignity. New Yorkers have dignity when they have a decent, safe, affordable place to live, a job with a future, an education system that has high expectations for every child, and where every resident is safe from crime and from police abuse. Dignity also includes respect for different cultures, languages and beliefs.
I am running for Mayor because far too many New Yorkers do not live here with dignity and that must change. I have spent the last three decades as a civil rights and racial justice advocate who has also served at senior levels of city government, because dignity for people of color in particular has been a national shame and that includes New York City.
I will bring New Yorkers together to do more than recover from the COVID-19 crisis; we will reimagine New York City rise together; rising above hate, rising from joblessness to dignity, rising from homelessness to hope, rising from an affordability crisis to communities that are sustainable.
This is within our reach, but it requires bold leadership that fearlessly confronts the realities New Yorkers face in partnership with our communities. I am that leader. From working to end racial discrimination, including suing Pan Am Airways for discriminating against passengers who it believed to be Muslim, working to support the Third World Within Coalition when communities of color where devastated by the aftermath of 9/11, and as the Co-Founder and President of the Center for Social Inclusion, now part of Race Forward, I became a national leader on transforming structural racism. When I joined City Hall in 2014, I came to continue that decades long work and am grateful for the opportunity to have helped move the first-ever Sanctuary Cities legislation, to increase city contracts to Minority & Women owned Business Enterprise from $500 million to $1.6 billion in a single year and to get the money, commitments and plans moving that resulted in every apartment in Queensbridge Houses free broadband – something the City had never imagined doing. I left city government and became the Senior Vice President for Social Justice and a faculty member at the New School, but I also Chaired the NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board, sending Eric Garner’s killer, former Officer Daniel Pantaleo, to face charges for the killing. I also Co-Chaired the School Diversity Advisory Group convened by the Department of Education Chancellor where we led a multi-racial, multi- stakeholder process to advance true school integration and increase educational opportunities for students of color, students with disabilities, Multi-Language Learners and students who are homeless.
I am uniquely positioned to be a transformative leader and I know how to marshal all of the government’s resources to make history, not deals; and transcend the business-as-usual governmental tinkering to make truly transformational progress. New Yorkers cannot afford the politics of least resistance and deserve leadership that will beat a path to shared prosperity — to become one city, rising together, out of the ashes and into a future we build and live together.
Please cite your top three-five priorities should you be elected Mayor and why you believe they are priorities.
Jobs & Economic Mobility -- New York City is facing the worst economic crisis in at least a generation. We need an economic recovery plan as diverse as the workforce in New York City. It must focus on stimulative capital investment, workforce development, supporting our small businesses and restaurants, and providing relief for our low-wage and gig workers. And as we do all of this, we must not forget the impact the added burden that COVID has placed on our caregivers -- the child care workers, homecare and healthcare workers, all have borne the brunt of this pandemic.We don’t just need a recovery, we need to reimagine what New York City looks like. COVID has not hit every community the same, and our plan needs to reflect that.
While some industries have partially recovered, people of color continue to suffer the worst, economically. As of September, Black and Latinx households had much higher rates of food and housing insecurity, and Asian households were experiencing considerable housing insecurity. Nearly a third of households with incomes below $50,000 were food and housing insecure. These examples make clear that while some in the city are doing okay, entire swaths of New York are struggling just to get by and are in danger of being forgotten.
This is why, as the first plank of my Economic Recovery Plan, I announced New Deal New York, a $10B capital investment program to put residents back to work and invest in the future of our communities. My plan will create a 5-year centrally managed $10B capital spending program for public works projects. The program will fund much-needed development, infrastructure repairs, and enhancements. The fund would consist of committed unspent capital funds and new capital dollars financed by City debt. It will also prioritize new kinds of investments that support our recovery while addressing the structural issues that cause racial and gender inequities. New Deal New York will target investments based on a comprehensive analysis of capital needs across five boroughs, using metrics including racial disparities in income, unemployment, capital need and city investment over the past decade, to ensure capital dollars are utilized in the most underinvested communities first. On Day One I will appoint a New Deal Czar who will report directly to me in City Hall and be responsible for implementing the program.
I have also put forward a plan for Universal Community Care -- is an ambitious interagency plan that rebuilds economic growth in sectors dominated by women of color and ensures that these jobs are good jobs, addresses the crisis of affordable childcare and eldercare, and fights for fair wages and protections for workers in the care economy. Universal Community Care recognizes that care exists in many forms: from paid childcare and elder care to direct services provided by frontline nonprofit workers to care provided within the home by family, to neighbors helping neighbors. This model will redirect $300 million in diverted resources from incoming NYPD and DOCCS cadet classes to give 100,000 high need informal caregivers a $5,000 annual stipend to compensate them for their labor. Using the Universal Community Care Model, I will also build community centers providing free childcare, eldercare, and other services in each neighborhood. And it will create strong, meaningful worker protections for our city’s care workers.
Criminal Justice Reform & Policing -- We need to put the Public back in Public Safety. This means a top to bottom restructuring of the NYPD, beginning with strong civilian oversight at the front end of policing -- policies that make clear what policing is and is not, what conduct will not be tolerated, as well as the priorities of policing, which I describe as problem-oriented, rather than punitive. When I am Mayor, I will do the following:
1. Run a full audit of the NYPD’s budget -- including the out of budget expenses such as settlements -- to assess the facts and make necessary cuts, including to the number of uniformed officers.
2. Move mental health calls, routine traffic violations, and school safety out of the NYPD. Assert civilian oversight of all policies and priorities of the NYPD on the front end. We cannot only assert civilian oversight to engage in discipline. We must prevent the nefarious acts from happening at the outset.
3. Hire a police commissioner that has not just moved up the ranks of the NYPD rank and file. We need a new model of leadership to work as a partner with the people to transform policing.
4. Create a shift from “containment and control” policing that produces strategies like unconstitutional “stop and frisks” and make “community and problem-oriented policing” the model, which requires collaboration and partnership with other agencies and communities. This approach focuses on underlying conditions identified and understood with communities and drawing in and working with other governmental partners to solve them. Eric Garner lost his life because he allegedly sold an untaxed cigarette. A community and problem-oriented approach would have worked with store owners, who were complaining, and also other agencies to address what was happening and how to find solutions that did not require an arrest. Too often the NYPD responds to problems of poverty, not of crime. We need to ensure that if the NYPD receives a call about a poverty problem, the right city agencies are involved and the NYPD is not.
5. End the criminalization of poverty and close Rikers while creating more alternatives to incarceration and re-entry programs.
6. Invest in what keeps our communities safe like youth programs, job and workforce creation and other community-sourced safety initiatives. The Gun Violence
Prevention Plan that I released in November is an example of this approach. This plan is entirely focused on investing in the programs that actually keep our communities sage, including the creation of an $18million Participatory Justice program that will give communities the resources they need to decide what and how they want to invest in their neighborhoods.
Housing and Homelessness -- In this current crisis, we need to ensure that people can stay in their homes. I support the expansion of right to counsel to provide free legal representation to tenants facing eviction. We also need to find ways to immediately house peopleAt its core, homelessness is an eviction crisis and all New Yorkers are housing ready. It is incumbent upon the government to provide affordable housing with the services and support that people need. In this current crisis, we need to ensure that people can stay in their homes. I will expand the right to counsel to provide free legal representation to tenants facing eviction. We also need to find ways to immediately house people. Approximately 4,000 people are sleeping on the streets on any given night. At the same time, around 100 hotels will likely go bankrupt due to the pandemic. As Mayor, I will explore ways for the city to acquire these properties to convert them into permanently supportive housing. But in order to keep people in their homes and realize the humanitarian benefits and financial savings from doing so, we need to make a significant initial investment in direct rent relief. In December, Congressional Republicans finally stopped playing politics with people’s lives and a COVID-19 relief package was passed. Based on initial estimates, we anticipate $251M in Emergency Rental Assistance funding for the City. Even as we prepare for more resources from Washington, we know that it will likely not come close to
addressing the massive housing crisis that has been exacerbated by this pandemic. I put forward a plan to use the $251m from the December Federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program to:
1. provide long-term solutions and stability instead of continuing the destabilizing pattern of providing month-by-month aid that does nothing to ease the painful psychic burden of housing uncertainty;
2. stop New Yorkers hit by the crisis from being evicted;
3. help small and nonprofit landlords who cannot afford to absorb the loss of
nonpayments;
4. address the reality that many families will still fall into homelessness and require rapid relief to remain in or return to housing.
In the long term, the best defense against homelessness is ensuring that New York’s housing stock is safe and truly affordable for all New Yorkers. We need to build on the success of the housing first model by moving homeless individuals to subsidized housing and then linking them to support services. We would save money by investing in permanent supportive housing and repurposing vacant hotels and commercial space to do so.
Education and Learning -- As I speak to families across this city, the first question they ask me is “how are you going to get my kids their school year back?” Others ask about how we will integrate schools and support students with disabilities and who are living in shelters. These are questions we must tackle head on. Predictably, the pandemic pulled the curtain back on the gross inequalities that exist in the education system, especially among those students who do not have the digital and technological resources to access online education, like students in shelters and low-income communities.
We have been debating for decades how to create public schools that are excellent, equitable, and serve all of our kids in innovative, diverse learning environments. Students of all races and their parents have been tortured by the lack of clarity on school closings and openings and left stressed and confused about what happens in Fall 2021. Students have lost a year -- of learning, socialization, emotional well-being and more. We need to support students, teachers, principals, and parents as we transition back into in-person learning and rebuild the trust between our families, staff and the DOE.
These challenges give us an opportunity to transform our schools and to think big about how to serve the unique needs of each child. On day 1 as Mayor, I will appoint a Chancellor with a background in education and work with all school stakeholders to restructure Mayoral Control of schools to ensure that there are more vehicles for meaningful engagement and accountability in the policies of the school system and more innovation at school and district level. The current Mayor’s lack of communication and collaboration with school leadership and families has led to chaos and disorganization, created more problems for the system, and led to a breakdown of trust and job one must be to rebuild that.
I will then use the opportunities that this crisis has created to reimagine education in the City and think outside the box. For example, we must consider how kids can virtually join classrooms for courses that they are interested in that may not be available in their school and look at repurposing vacant storefronts and buildings to provide much-needed space for learning--while simultaneously supporting business owners and communities. A transformed
school system must tackle the structural inequality in our schools—inequality that cheats our students of color, low income students, students with learning differences, and those experiencing housing insecurity. A Maya Wiley Administration will work to close the digital divide among students by providing broadband access.
This means growing innovations happening quietly in some corners of the school system that are neither celebrated or expanded (e.g., P-Tech, which blends classroom learning and workplace experiences.
Because of the pandemic, we now have the opportunity to rethink how our education system works—including how we allocate resources. We should consider our class sizes, especially ways to reduce them. We should consider how to support our teachers in ways that better empower them to do the kind of meaningful teaching that first called them to the profession. And we also must consider ways to expand our investments in nurturing the unique talents and gifts of low-income students and develop new models for how to run effective individualized education programs.
Recognizing that the budget is a moral document, I will advocate to ensure that adequate resources are available for our public schools. I support the Invest in Our New York revenue package in Albany which will raise up to $50B per year from those who can afford to pay more. In addition, we will do an audit of unused dollars that can be applied toward education programs. For example, the City currently underutilizes federal Child Care and Community Development Block Grants, which we plan on using to fund early childhood education in Community Care Centers across the city.
Health & Well-Being -- Health care is a human right and we have inadequate and crumbling health care infrastructure in communities that need it the most. We have hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers without health insurance . It’s a disgrace. As we fight to expand access to universal healthcare at the state and federal level, it is imperative that every New Yorker has access to quality, affordable healthcare - no matter immigration status or employment status. Health insurance costs are one of the top three expenses for City residents that make it unaffordable. It is also a reason that our public and safety net hospitals and community clinics are struggling financially.
I am working with experts to explore strategies that could create affordable health insurance options for New Yorkers not covered by existing programs, including undocumented immigrants. I want to expand on the City’s efforts through NYC Well, improve on the patchwork of programs that currently exist to serve City residents. And do so at a reasonable cost.
In addition to the establishment of a new program, I will invest in our public hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare facilities that provide critical care to low-income communities decimated by COVID and are so necessary to the health and well-being of the communities they serve. COVID is impacting not only physical health but mental health, and this crisis has brought into sharp focus the need to make affordable mental healthcare accessible for everyone who needs it. Too often, the NYPD is the only resource available to respond to people experiencing mental health emergencies. To combat this, I will begin by reviewing and reorganizing how the city supports mental health services. Some of the programs I will look to maintain, create or expand
are:
1. Support and connection centers that offer short-term, stabilizing services for people with mental health and substance use needs who come into contact with the police;
2. mental health urgent care centers, and drop-in centers for those with mental health concerns to avoid incarceration and involuntary hospitalization. These should be services people can access without a court order, with culturally competent training and language accessibility.
3. drop-In Centers--multi-service facilities for homeless New Yorkers that provide a variety of services including food, social work, and referrals to needed programs.
4. Mental Health Urgent Care Centers to provide individuals experiencing a mental health crisis with a short term alternative to hospitalization. This is especially important during
COVID, as our hospitals are already experiencing immense strain. Mental Health
Urgent Care Centers are also far more cost-effective than jailing people.
5. Expand Safe havens to provide immediate temporary housing for homeless individuals
and offer supportive services, including mental health and substance abuse programming. Additionally, I would integrate homelessness outreach and mental health services to build on this model, and utilize caseworkers to help find stable permanent housing.
We will do a full audit on the NYPD to ascertain how dollars are being spent and how they should be reallocated to support public safety, including mental health, rehabilitation services and violence prevention. Based on this assessment, we will move funds currently used by the NYPD on mental health responses and redirect them to EMS services, who will be trained and equipped to respond to mental health emergencies.
If elected, what (if anything) would you do differently versus your predecessor (or previous Mayors) and why?
My leadership is different than any Mayor that has come before me in both substance and approach. On substance, the New Deal New York plan that I rolled out earlier this year is an example of that difference. It is big, bold and beneficial to communities of color and low income communities hit hard by the twin pandemics of structural racism and COVID-19. It lays out a plan to invest $10B in City Capital spending in critical infrastructure - including green infrastructure, NYCHA and social infrastructure -- and lays out a way to engage in new kinds of investments that support our recovery while addressing the structural issues that cause racial and gender inequities. New Deal New York will target investments based on a comprehensive analysis of capital needs across five boroughs, using metrics including racial disparities in income, unemployment, capital need and city investment over the past decade, to ensure capital dollars are utilized in the most underinvested communities first.
My approach to governance is also different. I know that I do not have all of the answers, and believe that anyone who tells you they do is lying. I don’t lie and I don’t pander. That is why I believe that, as a strong leader, I must always begin by listening . Listening to the expertise of community members and stakeholders before making a policy determination is key to rebuilding trust in government and to enacting policies that will improve New Yorkers lives. The Gun Violence Prevention Plan that I released in November is an example of this approach. Gun Violence Prevention was the first policy that I released because as I talked to people in communities across the city it kept coming up. Families who had lost loved ones said over and over that neither their current elected officials or candidates were doing enough
to solve the crisis, and those that were talking about it at all were ignoring their ideas. So I convened a People’s Assembly on Gun Violence and developed a plan that includes an $18million Participatory Justice program that will give communities the resources they need to invest in their own communities.
What is your plan to help NYC recover from the economic crisis caused by Covid-19?
We don’t just need a recovery, we need to reimagine what New York City looks like. COVID has not hit every community the same, and our plan needs to reflect that. While some industries have partially recovered, people of color continue to suffer the worst, economically. As of September, Black and Latinx households had much higher rates of food and housing insecurity, and Asian households were experiencing considerable housing insecurity. Nearly a third of households with incomes below $50,000 were food and housing insecure. These examples make clear that while some in the city are doing okay, entire swaths of New York are struggling just to get by and are in danger of being forgotten. This is why, as the first plank of my Economic Recovery Plan, I announced New Deal New York, a $10B capital investment program to put residents back to work and invest in the future of our communities. My plan will create a 5-year centrally managed $10B capital spending program for public works projects. The program will fund much-needed development, infrastructure repairs, and enhancements. The fund would consist of committed unspent capital funds and new capital dollars financed by City debt. It will also prioritize new kinds of investments that support our recovery while addressing the structural issues that cause racial and gender inequities. New Deal New York will target investments based on a comprehensive analysis of capital needs across five boroughs, using metrics including racial disparities in income, unemployment, capital need and city investment over the past decade, to ensure capital dollars are utilized in the most underinvested communities first. On Day One I will appoint a New Deal Czar who will report directly to me in City Hall and be responsible for implementing the program.
I have also put forward a plan for Universal Community Care -- is an ambitious interagency plan that rebuilds economic growth in sectors dominated by women of color and ensures that these jobs are good jobs, addresses the crisis of affordable childcare and eldercare, and fights for fair wages and protections for workers in the care economy. Universal Community Care recognizes that care exists in many forms: from paid childcare and elder care to direct services provided by frontline nonprofit workers to care provided within the home by family, to neighbors helping neighbors. This model will redirect $300 million in diverted resources from incoming NYPD and DOCCS cadet classes to give 100,000 high need informal caregivers a $5,000 annual stipend to compensate them for their labor. Using the Universal Community Care Model, I will also build community centers providing free childcare, eldercare, and other services in each neighborhood. And it will create strong, meaningful worker protections for our city’s care workers.
Describe how you’d effectively address police misconduct and brutality, particularly as it affects communities of color.
We need to put the Public back in Public Safety. This means a top to bottom restructuring of the NYPD, beginning with strong civilian oversight at the front end of policing -- policies that make clear what policing is and is not, what conduct will not be tolerated, as well as the priorities of policing, which I believe to be problem-oriented, rather than punitive. When I am Mayor, I will do the following:
1. Run a full audit of the NYPD’s budget -- including the out of budget expenses such as settlements -- to assess the facts and make necessary cuts, including to the number
of uniformed officers.
Move mental health calls, routine traffic violations, and school safety out of the NYPD
and eliminate the Vice Squad.
Assert civilian oversight of all policies and priorities of the NYPD on the front end. We
cannot only assert civilian oversight to engage in discipline. We must prevent the
nefarious acts from happening at the outset.
Hire a police commissioner that has not just moved up the ranks of the NYPD rank
and file. We need a new model of leadership to work as a partner with the people to
transform policing.
Create a shift from “containment and control” policing that produces strategies like
unconstitutional “stop and frisks” and make “community and problem-oriented policing” the model, which requires collaboration and partnership with other agencies and communities. This approach focuses on underlying conditions identified and understood with communities and drawing in and working with other governmental partners to solve them. Eric Garner lost his life because he allegedly sold an untaxed cigarette. A community and problem-oriented approach would have worked with store owners, who were complaining, and also other agencies to address what was happening and how to find solutions that did not require an arrest. Too often the NYPD responds to problems of poverty, not of crime. We need to ensure that if the NYPD receives a call about a poverty problem, the right city agencies are involved and the NYPD is not.
End the criminalization of poverty and close Rikers while creating more alternatives to incarceration and re-entry programs.
Invest in what keeps our communities safe like youth programs, job and workforce creation and other community-sourced safety initiatives. The Gun Violence Prevention Plan that I released in November is an example of this approach. This plan is entirely focused on investing in the programs that actually keep our communities sage, including the creation of an $18million Participatory Justice program that will give communities the resources they need to decide what and how they want to invest in their neighborhoods.
Describe your plan to address/reduce the NYPD budget while better ensuring public safety and meeting community needs?
When I am Mayor, I will run a full audit of the NYPD’s budget -- including the out of budget expenses such as settlements -- to assess the facts and make necessary cuts to the department. I strongly believe that we must rightsize the NYPD and, yes, that means reducing the number of uniformed officers in the force. For years the NYPD has made unsupported statements to defend their budget. This has in part lead to a bureaucracy that is top heavy, with a senior leadership that is bloated and redundant, where too many resources go to funding administrative positions that don’t impact the department’s ability to respond to and investigate serious crime, illegal guns, and threats of terrorism. I will also significantly reduce the sizes of the upcoming cadet classes, and will redirect those funds towards my Universal Community Care Plan.
I believe in investing in community driven solutions to crime. This approach focuses on the underlying conditions that foster crime and emphasizes working with community and governmental partners to solve them. As laid out in the Gun Violence Prevention Plan that I released, I will invest in a Participatory
Justice Fund to support these solutions, increase the money going to violence interrupters, and invest in creating education and employment opportunities that prevent crime and reduce arrests by addressing crime’s root causes. We must institute a shift from “containment and control” policing that produces strategies like unconstitutional “stop and frisks” and make “community and problem-oriented policing” the model, which requires collaboration and partnership with other agencies and communities.
We need a new model of leadership to work as a partner with the people to transform policing. Require collaboration and partnership between the NYPD and other agencies through “problem solving policing.” Too often the NYPD responds to problems of poverty, not of crime. We need to ensure that if the NYPD receives a call about a poverty problem, the right city agencies are involved and the NYPD is not. We must end the criminalization of poverty in New York City.
What would you do to further LGBTQ+ rights, equity, and justice if elected Mayor?
I am running for Mayor to transform New York City, not tinker. We must reimagine our city and take on structural inequality, racism, homophobia and transphobia to finally fix what has been broken for far too long for Black, Brown, LGBTQ+, Indigenous, Immigrant, other marginalized communities and women of all races. As Mayor, I will appoint a police commissioner that makes sure there is no tolerance for homophobia and transphobia in the department and makes stopping hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community a priority. It is essential that the New York City public school system serves the needs of all its students. I plan to greatly increase the number of mental health professionals in our city’s public schools and I will make sure they have the capability to address the unique mental health challenges of LGBTQ+ students. I will also work to expand anti-bullying programs while making sure that all public school students have access to comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education that includes discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity.
My administration will expand funding for culturally competent mental health services for the LGBTQ+ community and work to increase access to HIV and STI prevention medications. I will also provide funding for staff at city hospitals that will act as case managers and advocates for Transgender, non-Binary and Gender Nonconforming patients. No one should be denied access to health care because of their chosen gender expression. I will expand funding for The New York City Commission on Human Rights as well as employment programs tailored to Transgender, non-Binary and Gender non-conforming New Yorkers. I also recognize that the LGBTQ+ homeless population faces unique challenges, especially LGBTQ+ youth. My administration will invest in supported SROs, increase outreach through ACS to create more supportive loving foster opportunities for LGBTQ+ youth and work to construct more culturally competent affordable housing targeted to the LGBTQ+ community.
Do you commit to retaining the New York City Unity Project, the City’s first Mayoral-level effort to coordinate LGBTQ+ policy efforts across city agencies, and if so, what actions would you take to build upon or revise the project?
I commit to retaining the New York City Unity Project if elected Mayor. The New York City Unity Project has been an important vehicle for improving services for New York City’s LGBTQ+ youth. It is essential that city agencies that deliver services to a specific population coordinate and work together to deliver the highest quality services as efficiently as possible. Currently, 16 different city agencies provide services to New York City’s LGBTQ+ youth. As Mayor, I will work to expand funding to the New York City Unity Project and focus more on analysis of program structure, effectiveness and areas of need. I will then increase funding for the City’s most effective programs, institute the reforms needed to improve those that are underperforming and either expand or create new ones to address gaps in service. One program I can commit to refunding right now is New York City Unity works, an employment program aimed at homeless LGBTQ+ youth. Although COVID has created a revenue crisis we cannot rebuild our city by cutting programs aimed at the most vulnerable New Yorkers. A smart recovery is an equitable recovery and relies on investment, not on austerity measures that tell hungry people to simply tighten their belts.
What would you do differently than your predecessor(s) to address New York City’s affordable housing crisis?
If elected, my administration will fight for affordable housing in every borough on multiple fronts. First, we need rent subsidies to address the immediate eviction crisis facing our families while standing up with fellow advocates to fight in Albany for universal rent protections and to preserve affordable rentals. Next, we need to change the City’s approach to land use and re-zonings in ways that creates and maintains affordable housing, with a focus on deep and permanent affordability over simple unit production. All land use and housing plans should include a fair distribution of resources, prioritize the construction of affordable housing, and take into account community needs while correcting for historic disinvestment and displacement. We must rethink our planning processes and economic development programs to be based on key principles and include real community and stakeholder engagement, so people have a real say and control over the destiny of their neighborhoods, without abandoning fair share principles. I support the expansion of the ULURP process to include a racial impact study for all neighborhood rezonings, a process that has been led by community groups through Council Bill 1572A. I also support expanding the ULURP process’ definition of “environmental impact” to include impact on housing, transportation, schools, and available healthcare services.
Also, my administration will pursue homeownership strategies and innovations such as nonprofit development, ways to increase access to credit, and community land trusts. Additionally, communities should have the opportunity to acquire their own housing. This means exploring programs where distressed properties, including commercial buildings, are acquired by the City for use as permanently affordable housing to be managed by nonprofit affordable housing developers, investing in community land trusts, keeping housing built on public land permanently affordable, and exploring measures like TOPA/COPA at the city level to put housing in the hands of residents. I will work to implement creative solutions to expand our affordable housing stock by converting tax liens, buying up vacant properties left behind in the wake of COVID, and stimulating more non-profit housing development.
Relatedly, and keeping in mind the City’s legal and moral obligation to provide shelter, how would you improve shelter and services for New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, particularly as it relates to reducing the number in need of shelter?
In this current crisis, we need to ensure that people can stay in their homes. As Mayor, I will fight for a stronger eviction moratorium that is long enough to ensure we avert an eviction crisis that will trigger massive homelessness stemming from this pandemic. I support the expansion of right to counsel to provide free legal representation to tenants facing eviction. In order to keep people in their homes and realize the humanitarian benefits and financial savings from doing so, we need to make a significant initial investment in direct rent relief. New York City received $251 million in Emergency Rental Assistance funding in the last COVID-19 relief package. While this funding will provide some much needed relief, it still does not come close to addressing the massive housing crisis that has been exacerbated by this pandemic.
I have put forward a plan to:
1) Provide long-term solutions and stability instead of continuing the destabilizing pattern of providing month-by-month aid that does nothing to ease the painful psychic burden of housing uncertainty.
2) Stop New Yorkers hit by the crisis from being evicted.
3) Help small and nonprofit landlords who cannot afford to absorb the loss of non-payments.
4) Address the reality that many families will still fall into homelessness and require rapid relief to remain in, or return to, housing.
I have learned that all New Yorkers are housing ready. We need to find ways to immediately house people. Approximately 4,000 people are sleeping on the streets on any given night. At the same time, around 100 hotels will likely go bankrupt due to the pandemic. As Mayor, I will explore ways for the city to acquire these properties to convert them into permanently supportive housing. We need to build on the success of the housing first model by moving homeless individuals to subsidized housing and then linking them to support services. We would save money by investing in permanent supportive housing and models such as supported SROS. In the long term, the best defense against homelessness is ensuring that New York’s housing stock is safe and truly affordable for all New Yorkers.
Keeping in mind the specific needs of LGBTQ+ New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, will you commit to increasing capacity for clients (youth and adults) who require single room placement for reasons of health and safety including clients with mobility issues and/or who identify as TGNC (because placement in traditional single adult shelter may compromise their safety)?
New York City must move away from our current shelter system which is inefficient and has proven to be incapable of serving the needs of our city’s homeless population with the dignity they deserve. As Mayor, I will invest in single room occupancies and other models of supported housing that allow every New Yorker to have a space that is their own where they are safe and can live with dignity. I will work to increase rent subsidies for homeless New Yorkers and explore creative solutions for expanding housing for the homeless, like converting hotels that have gone bankrupt due to the pandemic into permanently supportive housing. I understand that these changes will not happen overnight. Until they can be fully realized my administration will make sure to address the needs of at risk homeless populations. When
making placements my administration will prioritize the needs of the LGBT+ homeless population, as well as those who have specific medical needs or disabilities and avoid placing them in traditional shelters where they might be unsafe or inadequately served.
Describe what you believe is meant by “gender equity” and what steps you’ve taken to date and will take if elected Mayor to support and further gender equity?
We live in a City where there are still massive discrepancies between men and women in terms of pay, wealth and positions of power and influence. These gaps are even more pronounced when you account for race. African American women currently earn sixty six cents for every dollar earned by a man. The historical legacy of discrimination against women, especially women of color and transgender and gender non-conforming persons and the discrimination these groups still face today both contribute to this injustice. Gender equity is about confronting this reality and proactively pursuing solutions that correct for historic wrongs while dismantle the structural prejudice that still exists today. I have dedicated my life’s work, both inside and outside of government, to transforming systems that perpetuate discrimination, and dehumanization and have worked tirelessly to institute reforms and policies aimed at correcting their effects.
That is why the economic recovery proposals my campaign has released focus on historically marginalized communities, especially women of color. My campaign recently released my Universal Community Care Plan which rebuilds economic growth in sectors dominated by women. Currently, American women spend 243 minutes doing unpaid labor every day, or roughly 28.4 hours a week. My plan redirects $300 million in resources from incoming NYPD and DOCCS cadet classes and $200 million in underutilized federal funding to give 100,000 high need informal caregivers a $5,000 annual stipend to compensate them for their labor.
As council to the mayor, I increased minority and women owned business enterprise (MWBE) contracts from $500 million in spending to $1.6 billion in one year and laid the foundation for what has become the Mayor’s Office on MWB. As Mayor, I will build on this work and expand city contracts with women owned businesses, especially women of color by leveraging the power of our tens of billions of dollars in annual government spending. New York City’s budget is larger than that of most states, and our spending has a big enough impact to further important social and economic goals.
If elected, I will also make sure my administration continues to close the gender pay gap in city government and that senior positions in my administration and city agencies are filled in a manner that increases gender equity for women transgender and gender non-conforming persons. I will do the same thing with gender representation on Mayoral boards and commissions. Economic recovery will be one of the most critical components of my agenda, but to meet this moment, we cannot just rebuild our economy, we need to transform it. We can and will place economic justice and equity at the center of our response and ensure an economy that works for all New Yorkers. This means addressing the racial and gender wealth gap, pay gap for women, and economic security for all.
If elected, do you commit to using inclusive and gender neutral language in all official documents and press releases, and will you order city agencies to do the same?
Yes, if elected Mayor I will use inclusive and gender neutral language in all official documents and press releases and I will make sure all city agencies do the same. As Council to the Mayor, I strongly supported mandating that municipal buildings provide bathroom access that aligns with a person’s gender identity and was very happy to see Mayor De Blasio sign an executive order making that a reality. As Mayor, I will look for ways to build on his actions in making city government more welcoming and supportive of TGNC New Yorkers. It is essential that every New Yorker feels seen and heard by their city’s government.
How much money has your campaign raised to date and what are your key sources of support? Relatedly, are you rejecting contributions from specific sectors, such as lobbyists, real estate interests, pension fund managers, police unions, etc.?
As of January 11th, we have raised over $720,000 from 7000 donors and will have over $3M on hand when we receive our public matching funds in March.
In order for us to reimagine New York, we must rebuild trust in government. My campaign does not take any contributions from real estate developers, city lobbyists, or police unions and I am participating in the new public campaign finance program that caps donations and helps keep big money out of politics. I do not come from the political machine and do not have political ambitions beyond my mayoralty. I am running a grassroots campaign that relies on the support of everyday New Yorkers in every borough, not the connected few. They are my key source of support. Over seventy five percent of the donations to my campaign have been for a hundred dollars or less. One of the goals of my campaign is to give voice to so many who are traditionally left out of the conversation. This is why I have and will continue to have People’s Assemblies, to ensure that regular New Yorkers are part of the decision making process. No New Yorker should be able to gain access or influence based on the relationships they have or the money in their pocket.
Why do you want LID's endorsement? If LID endorses you do you commit to including that endorsement on your website, social media, and all campaign literature on which you list or make mention of endorsements?
LID has long been at the forefront of change in this City. In 1989, LID endorsed David Dinkins and played a major role in the election of New York’s first Black Mayor. New York has not elected a Black person since 1989 and has never elected a Woman to lead our great city. I want LID’s endorsement because of LID’s change making history and ability to not just recognize and fight for what’s right – but to actually have the ability to execute this change and win hearts and minds, and ultimately, elections. I am running a campaign for mayor that is centered around fairness, equity and justice for all New Yorkers. Though we must rebuild, it’s not enough to just return to the New York that predated COVID. We must reimagine our city and use this crisis to face structural inequality, actual racism and finally fix what has been broken for far too long for Black, Brown, LGBTQ+, Indigenous, Immigrant, and women of all races. For more than
forty years LID has been giving LGBTQ+ New Yorkers a voice. As Mayor, I will make sure that voice is heard in City Hall. For my entire adult life, I have been an advocate for marginalized communities. If elected Mayor, my administration will work to further the rights, equity and justice of our city’s LGBTQ+ community. On issue after issue, police reform and social justice, affordable housing and homelessness, the New York City Public school system we share the same values and goals. If I received your endorsement, I would proudly include it on my website, social media and all campaign literature where I list or make mention of endorsements.