Scott Stringer

Level
Mayor

More Information
Campaign Site

2020 LID Questionnaire Response

Why are you running for Mayor?

I have a vision to build a more just, affordable and progressive New York. In the last year, we’ve all watched our city and its families endure enormous pain, most of it in communities of color and immigrant communities. COVID-19 has exposed the long standing inequities that have divided our society and has finally forced us to reckon with simultaneous public health, economic, and social justice crises.

New York City’s next mayor will oversee a massive recovery effort, and we must reopen our economy in a fundamentally different way than we closed it. This will require policy expertise, government managerial experience, coalition-building skills and political savvy, and a bold vision — with detailed, actionable plans — for a more just, equitable, and sustainable city. It is this very combination of skills, experiences, and vision that I bring — uniquely, I believe — to this race.

As Mayor, I’ll bring our city forward starting on Day One. I’ve released bold and comprehensive plans that are ready to go — on everything from public housing, to public health and public safety – and I’m building a diverse, progressive coalition to get it done. I’m ready to take on this fight, for today’s New Yorkers and the next generation, and fundamentally transform our city so that everyone has a fair shot.

Please cite your top three-five priorities should you be elected Mayor and why you believe they are priorities.
I am proud to be running on a broad agenda to bring our city — and our economy — forward for all New Yorkers, stronger and fairer than ever before. While I would not elevate these over other areas of focus, housing, healthcare, early childhood education, reimagining public safety, and delivering climate justice are essential to my holistic vision for recovery and progress:

● Housing as a Human Right: As a former housing organizer, I understand that the crisis of homelessness in our city is a product of decades of policy failure by all levels of government to build the housing we need. Housing justice, and ensuring that everyone who calls New York City home has a safe and stable roof over their head, will be a top priority in a Stringer Administration. As Mayor, I will build affordable housing that is actually affordable for working people and New Yorkers on the brink, including the one-third of shelter residents who go to work every day. Too much of our so-called affordable housing today is built for families making $80,000 a year or more. We need to be targeting more of our resources towards extremely low and very low income families, those making $58,000 a year or less for a family of three (two parents working minimum wage jobs). But that’s just a start. As Comptroller, I have laid out specific plans to end the 421-a tax giveaway and re-invest those dollars in building more affordable units; to create a Land Bank/Community Land Trusts to turn city-owned vacant lots into 100% affordable units; and to triple from 5% to 15% the set-aside of new units for homeless families. Finally, my Universal Affordable Housing plan would require that every single new residential development in the city, in every neighborhood, set aside 25% of all units for affordable housing.

● End Health Disparities. The toll the pandemic is taking on our city, our economy, and especially on communities of color and marginalized people in our city, cannot be understated. This is especially true when it comes to healthcare delivery, which for too long has failed to reach those most vulnerable in our city. We need to expand models of culturally competent, trauma-informed care for marginalized populations across NYC, including new immigrants. New York City is America’s front door, and we welcome people from all over the world to come and make their home, without fear and in an environment that recognizes the hardships they may have faced prior to arrival. This must include healthcare, where systems must be inviting and receptive to their needs, allowing them to engage proactively in healthcare, rather than waiting until they are acutely ill or deferring care altogether. We will expand investment at H+H into trauma-informed healthcare and other delivery models tailored to the needs of people with unique cultural needs and histories of violence or trauma. We will also center the patient experience in our healthcare system and ensure that patient rights are advocated for.

● Comprehensive Child Care: NYC Under 3 is my plan to deliver universal affordable child care to all New Yorkers regardless of immigration status from birth to 3 years old. The research is clear -- more than 80% of a child’s brain develops before the age of 3, yet as a society we invest almost nothing in these critical years. Providing greater access to high-quality, center- or home-based care is the single most important investment we can make toward closing the achievement gap, because we will be helping every child get to the starting line of pre-K and elementary school on a more even footing. At the same time, we need to be investing more in our schools, particularly in grades K-3, to make sure we are leveraging the investments in the earlier years and helping more of our children become proficient readers by the 3rd grade. And we need to make sure that every student, in every neighborhood, has access to free, reliable, high-speed internet at home. At a time when all 1.1 million school children are forced to learn remotely due to COVID, failing to give students the tools they need to connect is tantamount to denying them their right to a full education.

● Reimagining Public Safety: I was the first elected official to offer a detailed and specific plan to reduce the NYPD budget by $1 billion over four years, which I view as a baseline to build on. We have approached public health and public safety too narrowly for too long -- at an enormous cost to Black and brown New Yorkers. The NYPD’s responsibilities have ballooned and now include a host of social challenges, none of which our officers are properly trained to handle. My office has recently outlined a bold blueprint for moving responsibilities from the NYPD to public health professionals, and redirect funding into alternative first-responses and community-based efforts to support New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, substance use, and mental health issues, as well as disconnected youth. We have to think more holistically about what builds community safety and reinvest resources into wraparound services and deep public health interventions, from safe haven beds and crisis respite centers to safe consumption facilities and overdose prevention programs. This shift will help to dramatically limit the number of interactions between New Yorkers and the criminal legal system. It must be accompanied by long-term investments in the supports that communities need to feel safe in their neighborhoods: housing, education, healthcare, and jobs with family-sustaining wages.

● Climate Justice: The immense financial and social disruption caused by COVID-19 serves both as a preview of the coming climate crisis and a stark reminder of how decades of environmental and economic injustice has left communities overexposed to whatever crisis comes next. Our City deserves a Green New Deal that will create tens of thousands of climate jobs, clean our air, prioritize public need over profit, and create a model of how urban sustainability can save our planet, and I am proud that my recently released climate plan for the city was endorsed by Bill McKibben, a founder of 350.org, and a long list of other committed activists. We must end the era of fossil fuels by greening our buildings and power supply. We must lift up the communities that have suffered from decades of pollution and disinvestment by ensuring access to the good green jobs that will overhaul NYCHA and build out new green spaces. We must act quickly to protect our shorelines before the next storm hits and build up community resiliency that protects the most vulnerable from intense heat. The time for half measures and incrementalism is over and my climate plan will put our city on a path towards a more sustainable future.

Finally, you are a reflection of who you surround yourself with. Over my 30 years in government, I have learned that solving New York City’s biggest problems requires inclusive coalition building that brings the voices of all New Yorkers to the table. Progressive policy results from having a ground-up movement that foregrounds organized labor, committed activists, and working people.

If elected, what (if anything) would you do differently versus your predecessor (or previous Mayors) and why?

It’s no secret that I’ve been a critic of this Mayor — from the displacement rezonings, to the missteps in dealing with this pandemic. As I outlined above, this Administration has been too focused on top-line numbers while ignoring the impact their policies had on working people — particularly when it comes to their housing plan, which had the effect of pushing working people out of their homes, rather than creating new opportunities for struggling New Yorkers.

With regard to the City’s handling of COVID-19 and the subsequent economic fallout, the virus has stolen the life of my mother and the lives of more than 24,000 New Yorkers. It has caused enormous economic and social disruption that has left too many New Yorkers without work, hungry, or homeless. I believe this Mayor failed to respond with the urgency and the vision required to keep New Yorkers safe and protect our economy.

In the early days of the pandemic, my office put out a report on the demographics of frontline workers in New York City showing that 75% of these heroes are people of color, and some 20% are undocumented. I pushed for them to get free protective gear, free health care and free housing, and will continue to do so as Mayor. I have been outspoken in providing new solutions to help counter the Mayor’s management throughout the crisis, from pushing early on for a

citywide shutdown and closing of schools, to later issuing a comprehensive blueprint to safely open schools and advocating for our most vulnerable children who have been left behind by the Mayor’s mismanagement. I have issued detailed policy reports and analyses to guide our response, including on how to best support the frontline workers who put their lives on the line to keep our city running as well as a 25 point plan to help small businesses.

I have also pushed City Hall to make sure their vaccination roll-out is done equitably and with those communities hardest hit at the front of the line. For starters, the city needs to release demographic data of those who have received vaccinations, vastly ramp up public education, fix its buggy websites for getting appointments, and re-deploy some of our 3,000 contact tracers towards helping seniors and other vulnerable communities navigate the system and get shots. There is no excuse for the city’s slow-footed approach to this challenge of vaccinating our city, which we have all seen coming for months.

I have also launched an investigation as Comptroller into the City’s preparedness and early response so we can better understand what went right, what went wrong, and how we can improve our response for the next crisis. As Mayor, I promise that I will always be guided by expert public health advice and I will never shrink from my responsibility to do whatever is necessary to protect the city I love.

What is your plan to help NYC recover from the economic crisis caused by Covid-19?

Our city is facing three overlapping crises: an economic crisis, a public health crisis, and a social justice crisis. The next mayor will need to address all three head-on to bring our city forward from this pandemic.

The immense financial and social disruption caused by COVID-19 serves as a stark reminder of how we need to rethink every element of government and do all that we can to make our communities stronger. As Mayor, I will put forth a broad-based plan to lift up the economic and physical well-being of all our communities, many of which will be drawn from plans and priorities that I have already laid out as Comptroller since COVID-19 struck -- all of which center communities of color and the need to address disparities in our city. They include detailed, comprehensive plans to save small businesses, protect frontline workers, keep children attached to childcare and our schools, protect the homeless, overhaul workforce training programs and provide free tuition to CUNY community colleges, and lift up minority and women-owned businesses.

For New York City, there is no economic recovery without a small business and restaurant recovery. Our commercial corridor businesses employed around 700,000 workers

pre-pandemic. Sixty percent are owned by immigrant New Yorkers and 73% of their employees are people of color. We cannot fail them. As Comptroller, I put out a detailed plan to save our small businesses and I will follow through as Mayor.

To support struggling businesses, I will provide tax credits to help cover re-opening costs; create a CUNY Tech Corps to help small businesses adopt digital tools and develop an online presence; streamline permitting and inspections by creating one-stop shop for all business needs; eliminate the City tax on liquor licenses; permanently cap the fees charged by third-party delivery companies; provide legal assistance to businesses involved in legal disputes; allow all businesses a “cure period” to address and fix violations; and dramatically improve language access at SBS, DOB, and other agencies to assist our immigrant-owned businesses.

Additionally, we’re going to spur entrepreneurship and reduce vacancies -- which will keep our commercial corridors vibrant and help existing businesses remain viable. To do so, we’re going to create single point-of-contact for launching a business; waive permitting and inspection fees for the next 10 months; provide tax incentives for entrepreneurs in high-vacancy retail corridors; create a “re-entrepreneurship” program connecting retiring business owners to aspiring entrepreneurs; help immigrant entrepreneurs expand into new markets and open second stores; create a Minority Business Accelerator program; create a comprehensive inventory of vacant storefronts to help entrepreneurs locate spaces quickly; help freelancers and other solo-entrepreneurs scale up and hire employees; make entrepreneurship programs a more prominent component of our workforce development offerings; and push for reform of occupational license requirements so that barbers, masseuses, and cosmetologists can more easily get a license and start a business.

As Mayor, I would also harness the power of the city’s procurement budget to help MWBEs. We spent over $22 billion on goods and services in FY 2020, but only 4.9% of that money went to certified MWBEs, as I highlighted in my recent report on agency MWBE spending. We need to expand the promise of Local Law 1. The “next generation” of the program should boost the number of agencies required to prepare utilization plans, offer enhanced training to M/WBE officers, and hold agencies accountable for spending further down their supply chain.

We need to focus on connecting local people to local jobs. As Mayor, I would create a local “network coordinator” to serve as a point person in every Community District in order to strengthen the pipeline between local businesses and residents, especially in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods. To help local workforce development providers coordinate business recruitment, locate job opportunities for their clients, and build new training programs based on employer needs, I would look to the Lower East Side Employment Network — a partnership

of seven veteran workforce development providers and Community Board 3 – as a model that could be extended citywide.

And finally, my transportation policies will focus on how to make neighborhoods more easily accessible, which will help our small businesses. Ultimately, you can’t “shop local,” if your local commercial corridor is inaccessible. In order to bridge that divide, I will widen commercial sidewalks to make them more passable for shoppers, strollers, and wheelchairs and provide more space for crucial amenities like street seating, street vendors, bus shelters, garbage bins, bike parking and public bathrooms. I will build out neighborhood networks of bus lanes and bike lanes and I will make our Open Restaurants, Open Retail, and Open Culture programs permanent.

Describe how you'd effectively address police misconduct and brutality, particularly as it affects communities of color.

This summer, in neighborhoods all across the city, we saw police officers, ostensibly charged with protecting the peace, using extreme force against peaceful protesters. While violence at the hands of law enforcement has been an undeniable reality for New Yorkers of color for decades, these images — on the heels of the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery — have sparked a citywide reckoning on police misconduct and the roots of systemic racism that we as a city and a society must confront.

We also need leadership that understands that the NYPD is not an autonomous agency and can no longer act with impunity. As Mayor, I will appoint a police commissioner that shares my progressive values and is not afraid to make change. Beyond that, one of the most effective tools we have to prevent police violence is to reduce police interactions with New Yorkers, particularly in communities of color, and remove police from a broad array of frontline responses to which they are poorly suited, including in our schools. I’ve outlined my plan for that realignment here.

We also need real, independent oversight to hold the department and individual officers accountable for misconduct. The police should not police themselves, and the NYPD Commissioner should not be the sole arbiter of discipline. That is why I support stripping the NYPD of that role and empowering the CCRB to have final authority to impose discipline — and to investigate and prosecute a wider range of claims, including of racial profiling.

Decades of disinvestment from our communities and over-policing have failed young people in New York City, disproportionately youth of color, and swept far too many into our criminal legal

system. To fundamentally dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, we must provide real services and opportunities to our youth, both inside and outside of the school building. Schools must shift their emphasis to restorative justice and behavioral health — not suspensions, summonses, and arrests that disproportionately impact students of color. This includes the addition of thousands of social workers and guidance counselors in our public schools, and removal of armed NYPD officers.

More broadly, we need to be providing wrap-around services to at-risk youth and their families, including employment services, behavioral health services, educational supports, housing assistance, childcare, transportation, and even opportunities to relocate to other parts of the city. Such an approach would involve frontline and backend support from the Department of Youth, the New York City Housing Authority, Department of Education, DOHMH, and others. We must also guarantee free tuition and universal ASAP at CUNY community colleges, paid internships for all CUNY students nearing graduation, subsidized wage and apprenticeship programs for youth, and an expansion of Early College High Schools, Career and Technical Education, and College Now. We need to be uplifting our youth and helping them build careers and families, not holding them back and ensnaring them in the criminal justice system.

We also have to work harder to advance the cause of decarceration. Rikers Island is a stain on this city, and we have not moved quickly enough to shut it down. Instead, during this pandemic alone, the Rikers population has grown by thousands. To close Rikers’s doors for good, we must take a more aggressive approach in reducing the jail population by ending incarceration for technical parole violations, increasing the use of alternatives to bail, and identifying individuals who can serve the remainder of their City sentences at home. We also need to end the system of mandatory court surcharges and other fines and fees that criminalize poverty and force New Yorkers into a cycle of incarceration, while taking much-needed dollars out of their pockets — and I have worked with partners in Albany to advance such legislation.

Decarceration is not only a moral imperative but a fiscal necessity. As my office’s latest report on DOC spending outlined, we now spend $340,000 to keep one person in custody for a year. That money would be far better spent invested in supportive housing, mental health and substance use treatment, school-based social workers, community-based violence prevention such as Cure Violence, the Summer Youth Employment Program — a whole host of avenues that would actually begin to lift up communities, while reducing recidivism and opportunities for harmful interactions with the criminal legal system to begin with.

Finally, I was proud to lead New York City in its first-in-the-nation divestment from private prisons. I’m proud that New York State recently followed suit and sold its private prison pension

holdings, and other cities are considering similar moves. As Mayor, I will continue to push more cities and states across the nation to divest their holdings from this immoral industry.

Describe your plan to address/reduce the NYPD budget while better ensuring public safety and meeting community needs?

Policing in America has a long and fraught history, and New York City is no exception. From Clifford Glover, Amadou Diallo, and Eric Garner to choke holds, and stop and frisk – examples of deeply discriminatory practices and violence run deep, especially in communities of color.

In June, I was the first elected official in the city to present a tangible plan to begin scaling back the department’s multi-billion dollar budget. My plan moves at least $1 billion away from the NYPD over four years, and I believe additional cuts can and should be made. More recently, my office released a detailed blueprint outlining how the city needs to take a “public health first” approach to public safety, responding to homelessness, mental health crises, substance use, wellness checks, youth at risk of violence, and so many other challenges not with armed police officers but with wraparound services and deep investments in public health interventions. We need to take alternative approaches to building safety — through investments in community health, supportive housing, youth programming, and more.

As Mayor, I will work with and invest in community stakeholders to stop violence before it happens by vastly expanding Cure Violence and other community-led models. I will advance strategies to reduce the flow of guns into the five boroughs, provide comprehensive support services for at-risk youth, and invest in neighborhoods to address conditions that give rise to violence. This includes more targeted support for high-risk individuals and their families, leveraging the resources and expertise of the Department of Youth and Community Development, Department of Education, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the New York City Housing Authority, Housing Preservation and Development, and nonprofit organizations who best know their communities’ needs.

We need to take a multi-agency approach to building community safety and recognize that one of the best ways to help our young people is to get them jobs, which is one reason why I have proposed to make CUNY community colleges free for all, while investing in programs that subsidize jobs and help young people connect to the job market.

What would you do to further LGBTQ+ rights, equity, and justice if elected Mayor?

We must continue to speak out against homophobia, transphobia, institutional violence, and oppression, and deliver on the promise of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. City government’s commitment must be not only to celebrate love, equality, justice, and the

vibrancy of the LGBTQ+ community — it must also serve as a central pillar in the fight for social justice. My commitment as Mayor of New York City will be to protect the LGBTQ+ community from violence and discrimination and to advance the progress we’ve fought so hard for.

We know that people of color are disproportionately impacted by anti-LGBTQ+ violence — particularly transgender New Yorkers, who are far more likely to experience homelessness, sexual assault, and domestic abuse. And LGBTQ+ people continue to be denied equal treatment, services, and are physically or verbally harassed just because of who they are.

My administration will end the overpolicing of transgender women of color and sex workers, decriminalize sex work, expand HIV/AIDS resources in economically disadvantaged communities of color, promote LGBTQ+ history education and competency training in our city’s schools, and ensure the NYPD workforce are appropriately trained on transgender and gender non-conforming people.

As Mayor, I will double down on expanding transgender health care services and streamline data collection to bring transgender New Yorkers out of the shadows of our health care system by making one standard data collection process that accounts for sex/gender identity and sex recorded at birth.

I will also work to expand anti-bullying initiatives in schools, enhance resources for LGBTQ+ mental health services and suicide prevention, review all housing policies to ensure LGBTQ+ inclusivity, fund more LGBTQ+ senior affordable housing, and protect LGBTQ+ individuals in the shelter system.

As Mayor, I will also expand the number of New York City-based LGBTQ+ employers, and support and expand LGBTQ+ inclusion in the City’s MWBE contracting process to ensure more LGBTQ+ businesses do business with the City. We should also include a member of the LGBTQ+ community in every city commission, committee, and board that is an appointed position - to ensure a diverse and representative array of the city’s voices are at each and every decisionmaking and advisory table.

A Stringer Administration won’t stop until we recognize the inherent dignity and humanity of all regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

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?

Yes. To build upon the Unity Project, I will restore funding for the Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD)’s collaboration with the NYC Unity Project and NYC Center for Youth Employment to create the NYC Unity Works Program, under which a not-for-profit organization would be contracted to help queer homeless youth between the ages of 16 and 24 obtain gainful employment or education. The program was aimed at providing training, job placement and other workforce development initiatives for runaway and homeless queer youth that was planned to start last July but was placed on hold due to budget cuts.

I will also redouble efforts to specifically create and fund programs for LGBTQ+ homeless youth including providing LGBTQ+ homeless youth with significant health, educational and legal support and creating local 24-hour drop-in locations for LGBTQ+ youth.

My administration will bolster the Unity Project by expanding its scope and impact including launching a citywide mentorship program for LGBTQ+ high school and college students; bolstering efforts to end teen suicide and root out bullying in schools; increasing access to HIV and STI prevention information for all public high school students; ensuring enforcement of non-discrimination in schools; mandating LGBTQ+ competency training in all early childhood programs citywide; supporting and organizing government, clergy and community leaders to help parents in accepting their LGBTQ+ children, and supporting and organizing interfaith clergy to be inclusive of LGBTQ+ people.

I will also expand the Unity Project’s advertising to include more multilingual and multicultural media to expand outreach to LGBTQ+ youth in communities of color, immigrant communities, and non-English speaking families.

What would you do differently than your predecessor(s) to address New York City's affordable housing crisis?
As a former housing organizer, I understand that the crisis of homelessness in our city is a product of decades of policy failure by all levels of government to build the housing we need. I also think our homelessness crisis and our housing crisis are not two separate challenges — they are one in the same, and the sooner we acknowledge that and stop addressing them in silos, the sooner we can make real progress. As Mayor, I will build affordable housing that is actually affordable to working people and New Yorkers on the brink.

I have a five-borough housing strategy to fundamentally realign New York City’s failed approach to our housing crisis and build the next generation of social housing: including a new Universal Affordable Housing (UAH) requirement, ending 421-a, utilizing vacant city properties for those most in need of affordable housing, creating a NYC land bank and working in partnership with

non-profit developers and community land trusts, and expanding home ownership opportunities.

Universal Affordable Housing

The City’s inclusionary zoning program, Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH), has centered the creation of affordable housing in specific neighborhoods and offers developers additional height and/or density in exchange for the construction of a certain percentage of affordable units. By every measure, MIH has been a failure. Much of this housing is not affordable to local residents; most of the housing built under the City’s ‘Housing New York’ plan is set at 80% of HUD-defined Area Median Income (AMI), or households making up to approximately $77,000 a year, or higher. As a result, instead of helping to stabilize those communities against displacement, MIH has fueled speculation and gentrification.

Under my plan, every new as-of-right development with ten or more units will be legally required to set aside a baseline of 25% of its units or 25% of its floor area for permanent, low-income affordable housing. These units would be affordable to families at an average of 60% of Area Median Income (household income of $58,000 a year for a family of three), or two parents making minimum wage and raising a child.

Ending 421-a

I have called for ending the City's most expensive and least effective affordable housing program: 421-a. This program produces affordable housing units which can be above market rate in many neighborhoods — and worse, many of these units are not even created. I would end 421-a and instead redirect subsidies toward real affordable housing, using the $1.6 billion to plug financing gaps, deepen affordability levels, increase the amount of affordability, and provide good-paying jobs.

Housing for Extremely Low and Very Low-Income New Yorkers

The “affordable” housing created by the current Administration’s “Housing New York” plan is too expensive for as many as 435,000 of the city’s most severely rent-burdened households. An analysis by my office found that nearly 565,000 New York households pay over half of their income for rent, are severely overcrowded, or have been in a homeless shelter for over a year. As Mayor, I would start by looking at every City-owned vacant lot — all 2,900 of them — as a potential site for 100%, permanently affordable housing, in tandem with the creation of an NYC Land Bank and in partnership with community-based land trusts. Under my plan, all new construction of affordable housing on City-owned properties would be targeted to the roughly 580,000 New York City households with the greatest need for affordable housing. Almost 90%

of these households make less than $47,000 per year for a family of three, yet less than 25% of the City’s affordable housing is currently being built for these New Yorkers.

Housing and Supporting Homeless New Yorkers

We need to take a “housing first” approach to solving homelessness and recognize that when you build affordable and supportive housing for those most in need, you relieve pressure on the marketplace for others struggling to get by. It is appalling to me that in the richest city, in the richest nation in the world, we still have more than 60,000 New Yorkers sleeping in shelters every night. That will change under my administration.

In addition to the housing policy I’ve laid out above, under my watch, the City will prioritize finding subsidized homes for shelter residents, and constructing more supportive housing for those with additional needs. And we should reform the voucher system so that they reflect actual market rates and can be easily used. I also think that the contraction in the hotel industry caused by COVID, resulting in the shuttering of some 200 hotels, offers a rare opportunity for the City to purchase hotels that may come up for sale and convert them to safe, affordable housing or shelter for a broad range of New Yorkers.

Making Homeownership an Achievable Dream

New York must do more to help those who aspire to homeownership. New York’s homeownership rate is half of the rest of the country's (only 32% compared to 64% nationwide.) Black and Hispanic borrowers receive less than 16% of home loans citywide despite constituting the majority of the population. In order to grow homeownership across the city, I will expand loan and down payment programs, waive real property transfer and mortgage recording taxes for qualified first-time homebuyers, give tenants the right of first refusal to buy their buildings, and leverage community land banks and land trusts to build affordable co-ops and condominiums on City-owned land.

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?

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)?

Yes.

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?

Gender equity means ensuring everyone in New York City regardless of gender, gender identity or expression has equal access to opportunities and advancement, and are free from harassment, violence, and discrimination in housing, employment, health care, and all other aspects of daily life.

As Comptroller, I have advanced gender equity in my office by elevating women to the highest levels of our leadership team including both the First Deputy Comptroller and Chief of Staff and other deputy comptrollers – the most prominent positions in my office. As the fiduciary to the City’s pension funds, I have used the bully pulpit to mobilize other major institutional investors to speak out against discrimination — including an $11 trillion global coalition to oppose the Texas “Bathroom Bill” SB6; pushed for corporate diversity efforts explicitly to include the LGBTQ+ community; advocated for gender and racial pay equity; centered women and LGBTQ+ New Yorkers across the many functions of the Comptroller’s office; and spearheaded City legislation prohibiting discrimination of LGBTQ+ business owners who bid on city contracts that became law, effectively closing a glaring loophole in the City’s existing anti-discrimination protections.

In October, I called on City Hall and the Department of Education to allow nonbinary and gender non-conforming students the ability to choose their own gender identity in the DOE’s administrative remote learning ecosystem. In 2015, I partnered with Council Member Danny

Dromm to propose legislation that would require all publicly-accessible single-occupancy restrooms to become gender-neutral and change City codes to allow building owners to designate more gender-neutral restrooms.

As Mayor, I will ensure women, LGBTQ+, gender non-conforming, intersex, and transgender New Yorkers are protected from violence and discrimination. More specifically, I will expand transgender health care services and streamline data collection to bring transgender New Yorkers out of the shadows of our health care system by making one standard data collection process that accounts for sex/gender identity and sex recorded at birth.

I will also work to enhance resources for transgender, gender non-conforming, intersex, and queer (TGNCIQ+) New Yorkers in mental health services and suicide prevention, review all housing policies to ensure TGNCIQ+ inclusivity, fund more TGNCIQ+ senior affordable housing, and protect TGNCIQ+ individuals in the shelter system.

As Mayor, I will also support and expand TGNCIQ+ inclusion in the City’s M/WBE contracting process to leverage City dollars for economic justice for TGNCIQ+ entrepreneurs and community leaders. We should also include a member of the TGNCIQ+ community in every city commission, committee, and board that is an appointed position — to ensure a diverse and representative array of the city’s voices are at each and every decisionmaking and advisory table.

I will also work to expand resources for New Yorkers that want to change their legal names, and add more resources to ensure people know how to access these services.

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

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.?

Yes, my campaign is rejecting money from lobbyists, big real estate developers, pension fund managers, fossil fuel executives and police unions.

I am running in a field of over 40 candidates all vying to be our next mayor.

The Campaign Finance Board normally limits spending in the Democratic Primary for mayor to $7,629,000, and provides up to $6.4M in matching funds to eligible campaigns. However, another candidate in the race has opted out of the matching funds program, and plans to spend at least half of the $7.6M original spending cap.

Therefore, the Campaign Finance Board will lift the cap to approximately $10.9M. Between the direct contributions our campaign will raise and the matching funds we will be eligible for, we anticipate raising and spending the new maximum allowable amount of $10.9M.

With our expected eligible matching funds, as of January 11th, 2021, we have raised $8.3M in total for our campaign from over 5,500 donors across all five boroughs. I am proud of our grassroots support and the coalition my campaign is building.

I’m proud my campaign has the support from the following community leaders and labor unions, and more:

● Congressmember Jamaal Bowman (D-Bronx)
● Congressmember Adriano Espaillat (D-Bronx & Manhattan) ● Congressmember Jerry Nadler (D-Brooklyn & Manhattan) ● Sen. Alessandra Biaggi (D-Bronx)
● Sen. Robert Jackson (D-Manhattan)
● Sen. Brian Kavanagh (D-Brooklyn & Manhattan)
● Sen. Jessica Ramos (D-Queens)
● Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx)
● Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn)
● Assemblymember Robert Carroll (D-Brooklyn)
● Assemblymember Catalina Cruz (D-Queens)
● Assemblymember Maritza Davila (D-Brooklyn)
● Assemblymember Carmen De La Rosa (D-Manhattan)
● Assemblymember Dick Gottfried (D-Manhattan)
● Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou (D-Manhattan)
● Assemblymember N. Nick Perry (D-Brooklyn)
● Assemblymember Diana Richardson (D-Brooklyn)
● Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal (D-Manhattan)
● Assemblymember Rebecca Seawright (D-Manhattan)
● Assemblymember Amanda Septimo (D-Bronx)
● Assemblymember Al Taylor (D-Manhattan)
● Council Member Diana Ayala (D-Bronx & Manhattan)
● Council Member Costa Constantinides (D-Queens)

● Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Queens) ● RWDSU
● CWA District 1
● CWA Local 1180

● CWA Local 1101
● CWA Local 1109
● CWA Local 1106
● CWA Local 1102
● Food & Water Action

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?

Yes. LID has been a stalwart in the progressive movement for decades — fighting for LGBTQ+ equality in the State Legislature, marching in the streets for civil rights and justice, and organizing Democrats to make change. Your advocacy has been critical in the many wins that have taken place over the years from marriage equality to ending the Walking While Trans ban. Your members are passionate community advocates who roll up their sleeves, speak out against injustice, and fight the good fight for the LGBTQ+ community and all New Yorkers — electing progressive and visionary Democrats up and down the ballot.

I am seeking LID’s endorsement because the values advanced every day by your organization are my values, too, and always have been. LID represents the best of New York: an organization built on LGBTQ+ equality, diversity, and committed to grassroots organizing — and dedicated to the promise of achieving lasting, structural change through strategic action and coalition building. I have always been proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with this organization to fight transphobia, homophobia, discrimination, and violence — and to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ people.

I would be honored to have LID’s endorsement and would proudly display it on all of our campaign materials. I hope to take our partnership from the City Hall steps into the Mayor’s office.

Scott Stringer

2020 LID Questionnaire Response

NYC VOTER Resources

FOLLOW LID

Site Links