Shaun Donovan

Mayoral Candidate Questionnaire

 

Rebuilding New York City

Question 1

Please describe what steps you will take to rebuild the economy.

The top priority for the next mayor must be the social, economic, and physical recovery of our city and its residents. The damage caused by COVID will be felt for years to come, and it will take considerable investment to not only return to what we had before, but to use this crisis to build back something better. To do this, we will need significant relief from the Federal government. My strong personal relationships with President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and members of Congress and the Senate puts me in a unique position to get the federal support that New Yorkers need and have been cruelly denied by the Trump administration. I will work to ensure we receive the necessary business and infrastructure aid, personal protective equipment, and other essentials as we rebuild and reimagine our economy as one that works for all New Yorkers. 

The devastation wrought in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic and the national reckoning on race that followed the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others have only made it clearer that we cannot simply work toward a return to normal. We must hold ourselves and our economy to a much higher standard. 

We need a city committed to using its power and resources to ensure a fair playing field for everyone; where everyone has a fair chance at a life of dignity; where everyone can earn a decent living, build a business, and test their talents and ambitions; and where businesses thrive—in every neighborhood and every borough. 

We need a city committed to investing in neighborhoods and communities, and the small businesses and entrepreneurs that power them, and to driving job growth, stimulating entrepreneurship, sustaining the environment, and enhancing the quality of life of all New Yorkers. Every New Yorker should have the opportunity to live in a 15 minute neighborhood, where a great public school, fresh food, access to rapid transportation, a park, and a chance to get ahead can all be found within 15 minutes of their front door. 

We need a city focused not only on the problems of today, but the opportunities of tomorrow: with Shaun’s plan, we will build the industries that will drive long-term growth and create good jobs for years to come. 

In rebuilding our city, we need to start where job loss and economic decline have been most sharp and consequential. Our plan for New York’s economic recovery is anchored in six key principles of equitable development: 

• Grow the economy to create opportunities for all New Yorkers 
• Build a path for every New Yorker to develop skills that are directly tied to jobs
• Invest in neighborhoods, beginning with those that have endured the greatest disinvestment
• See, understand, and address racial inequalities explicitly, and measure progress
• Address inequalities head-on in partnership with community and business leaders
• Prioritize racial equity through strategic leadership and key appointments 

To read more, please go to: https://shaunfornyc.com/issues/economic-development/

 

Question 2

There has been a seismic shift in female representation in the workforce due to COVID-19. Particularly, women of color have lost jobs or have been left to care for their families. What is your plan to spur job growth and small business ownership for women?

Too many New Yorkers have been shut out of a pathway to economic security, even at times when the city’s economy has grown rapidly. Black and Brown New Yorkers earn less than White New Yorkers in many sectors of the New York City economy and are underrepresented in middle-income jobs. Latinx business ownership is lower than five years ago and Black ownership is too low. Half of all working New Yorkers labor in the service sector, earning wages that average $40,000 per year. Women especially are heavily overrepresented in lower-paid service jobs. 

Not only is it our responsibility to help build up communities that have often missed out on the benefits of our city’s growth, doing so would translate to a stronger economy and greater opportunity for all New Yorkers. The pathway to a more equitable economy cannot be imposed: we will work hand-in-hand with every community to understand how to best meet its needs and help ensure economic prosperity for its residents. 

We are committing to the following policies and programs: 

Make commitments and measure progress 

We will designate a Chief Equity Officer in the mayor’s cabinet to set goals, measure progress, and collaborate with all agencies of the City of New York to ensure progressive achievement. Two primary pillars of our equity work include: 

• Refocusing the New York City Economic Development Corporation around driving economic growth that is tied to economic equity for all New Yorkers 
• Strengthening the minority and women-owned business enterprises (MWBE) network and infrastructure to ensure we are making the most equity-minded decisions when determining and awarding contracting opportunities 

We will launch Equity Corporate Commitments to drive substantially greater Black, Latinx, and Asian job participation in high-wage and middle-income work. We will convene the top 100 largest employers in New York City to engage their support in achieving employment and compensation equity across racial, ethnic, and gender groups. The corporate community alone cannot carry the burden of building a better, more fair economy: we will engage their expertise and work with the business community collaboratively and creatively to put in place pragmatic, far-reaching solutions. 

Most importantly, we will partner with the business community on a broad-based public-private initiative to upskill New Yorkers and significantly reduce racial economic inequality in NYC. We will establish a City-led program, in partnership with employers and non-profit leaders, to recruit and train candidates across New York City and match them to jobs in high-skilled industries where economic growth, incomes, and future opportunities are greatest. Building on past successes, we will bring apprenticeship, job, training opportunities to scale, making them available to many more New Yorkers in every borough. 

The Chief Equity Officer, a cross-agency advocate, collaborator, and ultimate responsible stakeholder, will work to achieve a set of specific, measurable targets in program design and implementation, as well as structural policy-making, to ensure that we are turning the lens on ourselves—on our own actions and behaviors—to critically evaluate our decisions. 

These equity targets include, but will not be limited to: 

• An orientation, in all aspects related to the equity and inclusion, that seeks to acknowledge, understand, and elevate the lived experiences of all people—especially people of color. To achieve this, we will take a data-driven and collaborative approach to identify and catalog inequities. 
• Fair and transparent hiring practices, including transparency around promotions
• Increased, concrete targets for the contracting of City business with MWBE-certified companies—with strict standards for the attainment of these targets 
• The creation and implementation of a systematic rubric to evaluate equitable service delivery across neighborhoods 
• Increased outreach and public engagement with communities of color, including community-based organizations and equity-focused think tanks 
• Increased access to City services for communities of color, immigrant communities, and marginalized communities, especially in the wake of a public health crisis 
• Internal advocacy to support or change existing services using a disparity reduction framework
• Increased facilitation and collaboration between communities and institutions to eliminate inequity in all areas of government, with a particular focus on education, criminal justice, environmental justice, housing, and economic development 

Through the role of the Chief Equity Officer and the larger equity team, we will commit to a breadth and depth of institutional transformation that prioritizes engagement, partnership, and learning from communities to achieve meaningful, and sustainable results. 

Great neighborhoods have a thriving, vibrant local economy driven by a diverse group of businesses and entrepreneurs. We will nurture entrepreneurship, especially among immigrants and Black and Latinx New Yorkers, providing technical assistance that is anchored in proven approaches. We must also strengthen the minority and women-owned business enterprises (MWBE) network and infrastructure to ensure we are making the most equity-minded decisions when determining and awarding contracting opportunities. The City’s Chief Equity Officer will drive efforts across City agencies and be responsible for ensuring that we achieve concrete and ambitious benchmarks. 

We will center entrepreneurship as a strategy for increasing family wealth-building and leverage city investments with community development corporations and community development financial institutions to deliver evidence-based strategies to support entrepreneurs. 

We will deploy the convening power of the mayor to establish the NYC Entrepreneurship Financing Fund and leverage public, private and philanthropic investments to fund it. We will deploy capital to small businesses in neighborhood commercial areas, dispersing small loans to viable retail businesses to help them retool and expand as New York City emerges from the pandemic-driven recession. And we will do so at scale, directing unprecedented levels of financing to underinvested communities.

 

Question 3

How would you have handled the Amazon deal differently? Please describe your approach to recruiting companies to NYC.

In our administration, we will work to improve the business environment for all businesses, eschewing special deals for some employers. We will make deep and equitable investments in the things that business leaders tell us matter most: investing in our schools, in CUNY and in supporting skills development for all New Yorkers so that we continue to offer the most highly skilled and most diverse labor force in the US; strengthening and expanding our public transit system; building ample affordable housing to meet the needs of our city; and streamlining business regulation so that all businesses can meet the expectations of them.

The Amazon deal envisioned significant land use actions and should not have been exempted from public review. As a result, significant questions about congestion and the need for more transit and more public school capacity were not adequately addressed, resulting in unnecessary public distrust. We will lead robust public engagement in land use actions of this consequence.

Jobs matter, and jobs in the fastest growing segments of our economy matter greatly. We will work ceaselessly to make sure that our economy grows and that all New Yorkers are able to participate fully in a thriving economy. You can read more about our plans here.

 

Question 4

Municipalities across the country have had systems and data held hostage for ransom, do you think NYC is sufficiently protected? If not, what is your plan and what is your position on paying ransom?  

First, to ransomware threats, no I’m not in favor of paying out ransoms to cyber attackers who look to exploit our city and the resources our city’s citizens and businesses entrust us to protect. I’d much rather dedicate our resources to improving the city’s data and IT security infrastructure, and building pathways for more individuals from underrepresented communities to enter STEM fields. We will look to strengthen minority and women-owned business enterprises (MWBEs) and make it easier for these often overlooked organizations to access capital and partnership opportunities.

I will make sure that the data and systems stored by the NYC government are safe and secure. I look forward to working with organizations like yours on viable solutions to problems like these.

We will oversee interagency and interdisciplinary collaboration, data-sharing, research and development, evaluations, and data and innovation public-private partnerships. 

Other areas of focus should include:

• Enterprise data governance and management, including data warehouses, inventory, and integrated systems
• Continuity of operations and disaster recovery
• Protection of data privacy and confidentiality
• Enterprise evaluations, including randomized control trials
• Human-centered design and innovation strategies

We will also equip every NYC employee with enterprise-wide trainings and the tools necessary to assess and reduce security risk associated with data and information technology.

To do this, we will:

• Expand NYC Secure, protecting New Yorkers and scaling trainings to students, neighborhood associations, and CBOs
• Expand and elevate NYC Cyber Command (NYC3), collaborating with non-governmental sectors and other government entities to make sure relevant and up-to-date information is shared and leveraged
• Develop cyber resiliency plans to ensure information technology systems continue delivering services in the event of a cyber incident and we can be prepared for when an attack occurs · Conduct risk assessments and risk simulations to center the impact of New Yorkers when it comes to their privacy, the potential harms that can occur with a new technology, and the use case of these technologies
• Diversify the procurement of technologies to ensure no back-end access to data or scope creep

 

Question 5

How do you plan to address the issue of affordable housing when nearly 30 percent of people are spending half their income on rent? How do you define affordable housing?

We will make an unprecedented investment in New York City neighborhoods by increasing the supply of affordable housing, equitably and inclusively, across all five boroughs.

As commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), I crafted and carried out the largest and most ambitious affordable housing plan in the nation. I boosted the housing plan from a 65,000-unit program to 165,000 units and spurred the revitalization of neighborhoods that had long struggled to recover from the blight and abandonment of the 1970s and 1980s.

Today, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated an affordable housing crisis in our city that primarily impacts low-income, underserved communities of color. Prior to the pandemic, these communities were already facing systemic disparities that affected their opportunities for fair and affordable housing and economic growth and prosperity. The economic impacts of COVID-19 are serving to destabilize an already at-risk population, and have shown the need for prioritization to ensure these New Yorkers don’t fall through the cracks.

We are committing to the following policies and programs:

• Expand capital funding for affordable housing
• Ensure regulatory agreements match the public investment and need
• Adopt United for Housing’s recommendation to implement a city-state housing partnership for affordable and supportive housing
• Create good-paying jobs for hardworking New Yorkers
• Convert distressed properties into affordable housing
• Implement United for Housing’s recommendation to lead an inter-agency effort to innovate new models, create efficiencies in process, modernize building codes, and streamline approval processes

To read more, go to: https://shaunfornyc.com/issues/housing/#Produce

 

Question 6

How will you reinvest in and expand public housing, ensuring that all have a decent home? What are your specific plans to expand and revitalize public housing in NYC?

With more than 2,300 residential buildings and over 173,000 units, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is the single largest provider of deeply affordable, low-income housing in the city. More than 400,000 of our most vulnerable New Yorkers call NYCHA home, and its aging and deteriorating properties are woven into the fabric of communities in every borough. As the health and stability of NYCHA declines, so too does that of many of our neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, over the years we have watched as Congress has cut billions of dollars from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) budget, and by extension, slowly starved the nation’s public housing system and our own Housing Authority. As of early 2020, NYCHA has a roughly $40 billion capital needs gap. And that number will grow further if NYCHA does not make repairs that its residents need.

It is time for New York City to take the lead and to treat our public housing as a priority, an irreplaceable asset, and as one of the long-term keys to the success of our recovery. We will ensure that we no longer operate NYCHA as if it is a separate city within our city. For NYCHA to thrive and for New York to thrive, our public housing must be part of a comprehensive plan that spans housing and community development, climate change and resiliency, and so much more.

To achieve this goal, we will fully adopt and aggressively implement the NYCHA Blueprint for Change and the recommended policy goals of the “From the Ground Up 2021” plan from United for Housing.

We are committing to the following policies and programs:

• Establish a Preservation Trust to empower NYCHA residents
• Commit to making meaningful investments in housing
• Reduce costs by prioritizing efficiency goals
• Address persistent issues caused by NYCHA governance
• Advocate for greater support at the state and federal levels

To read more, please go to: https://shaunfornyc.com/issues/housing/#Public

 

Question 7

With the cost of living rising at nearly three times the rate of wages, 2.5 million working-age New Yorkers are struggling to provide food, housing, and other basic necessities for their families. What specific plans do you have to address poverty and the vulnerability of the working poor in NYC?

One of my biggest proposals to decrease poverty is providing Equity Bonds. In this plan, we would provide Equity Bonds of $1,000 to every child in New York City. The plan would also provide annual deposits of up to $2,000 for public, charter, and low-income private school students.

This investment would immediately begin to tackle generational wealth disparities that play a fundamental role in systemic inequality. Funds would be accessible to enrollees upon graduation from a New York City school, attainment of a G.E.D. or apprenticeship (including a grace period), for purposes like paying for college, buying a home, starting a business, eradicating debt, and other methods of achieving economic security.

You can learn more about that proposal here: https://shaunfornyc.com/equity-bonds/

 

Public Health & Safety

Question 8

How do you plan to address the rise of hate crime incidents in NYC? How will your office engage with communities to promote hate crime reporting and prevention? Do you consider gender-based violence a hate crime? If so, how will you reduce and prevent it?

Yes, gender-based violence is a hate crime. New York City’s diversity is one of our greatest strengths. Harassment and crimes that are motivated by racism or sexuality or gender not only harm individuals and communities, but are also attacks on our city itself. As Mayor, I will work with local law enforcement to ensure that all such crimes are fully investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and will make sure that the Human Rights Commission and other agencies are dedicated to preventing them from happening in the first place. 

While I believe that there are responsibilities of the NYPD that need to be reimagined, the mitigation of hate crimes is not one of them. Policing needs massive reform that includes a new approach to public safety and puts racial justice as a guiding principle of every policy area. First, we must reimagine and look at the entire criminal justice system, not just policing. Public safety should be community-driven and public safety institutions must be accountable and transparent. Second, we must reduce what is asked from police officers so that they can focus on getting guns off our streets and reducing violent crimes. We should be shifting responsibility for mental health crises, schools, homeless outreach, and traffic to other agencies that are better equipped to deal with these types of challenges. Lastly, we must reinvest in the well-being of marginalized communities and critical services that secure the streets for every New Yorker, this includes expanding restorative justice programs and increasing investments in non-profit service providers.

 

Question 9

What is your vision for preventing and reducing the crimes of sexual assault and rape? Other than improving the transparency and effectiveness of the criminal justice system, what multidimensional and innovative plans of action will you specifically implement?

We will ensure that perpetrators of sexual assault are held accountable and will afford those who have been victimized the respect, attention, and compassion that they deserve. This begins with making it easier for people to come forward to report assault and rape. Unlike the current administration, we will give the NYPD sex crimes unit the staffing that it needs to be effective–including experienced investigators who understand the complexities of solving and prosecuting sex crimes. We also will make sure that the department is fully responsive to and respectful of victims and make trained social workers are available to support everyone who has been victimized. Ultimately, the process for reporting assault and working with investigators to hold the perpetrator accountable has to be more responsive and less invasive for the victim, so they are not re-traumatized by the process.

Importantly, our response to sexual violence will be broader than simply policing and prosecution. Sexual assault occurs in a societal context that too often places responsibility on the victim rather than the perpetrator – and our administration will proactively seek to change this dynamic through messaging campaigns and through the anti-sex discrimination work of the Human Rights Commission.

 

Question 10

Violent crime has risen to alarming levels, and home burglaries are up. What is your plan for reducing gun violence, sex crimes, and assaults/muggings that instill fear in the public and harm quality of life for city residents?

For decades, Congress has restricted CDC research on gun violence. In 2019, Congress appropriated $25 million to gun violence research, a pittance compared with the number of gun deaths in the United States.

New York City can step in where the federal government is falling short. City agencies will initiate and fund research on the causes and prevention of gun violence through a public health lens. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will collaborate with researchers, non-profits, and other relevant City agencies—including the Department of Social Services and the Department of Education—to study and report on the causes of gun violence. We will invest in and prioritize community-led and community-centered research as part of these efforts, recognizing that those closest to the problem are closest to the solutions.

Through this effort, New York City can serve as an example to cities across the country, collaborating with other mayors to mobilize resources and pool efforts to better understand and address gun violence as a serious public health problem.

 

Question 11

How will you work to rebuild trust between the community and law enforcement, while also ensuring accountability for police misconduct, police brutality and sexual assault?

It is critical to reduce the footprint of the criminal legal system and to reinvest in services that provide safe and healthy communities for all New Yorkers especially those that have been disproportionately impacted by over-policing and over-incarceration. I want to reimagine a criminal legal system that is community based and data driven.

Recent incidents of police violence in New York City and across the country have put a spotlight on the fact that officers are often asked to address social and community issues that they are ill-equipped to handle such as mental health crises. We will establish a comprehensive, citywide response system for mental health emergencies so that police are not asked to assume the role of a mental health professional or social worker. We will also reduce over-policing and over-incarceration, close the Rikers jails, and ensure that individuals have access to affordable housing, health care, job development, and critical social services to help prevent contact with the criminal legal system and cycles of incarceration in the first place.

By right sizing the criminal legal system, we can stop cycles of arrest, prosecution and incarcerations that impact low-income communities and communities of color. Further, we will prioritize community based anti-violence programs to effectively reduce and prevent crime while decreasing our reliance on the police.

I will redirect funds currently allocated to law enforcement and corrections and invest $500 million annually in community-focused public safety and racial justice initiatives. I will also dedicate roughly $3 billion or 20% of the city’s public safety budget towards these efforts by the end of my first term. This reinvestment will be guided by input from low-income communities and communities of color.

 

Question 12

In 2019 alone there was a 52% increase in DV homicides and 911 received upwards of 800 DV calls a day. What is your plan to prevent, identify and keep women safe from abusive intimate partners?

It is crucial that people who are victimized by intimate partners have sufficient trust and confidence to come forward and have access to options that can keep them safe. To this end, we will make DV a priority for the criminal justice agencies and expand funding for programs like Safe Horizon and family justice centers so that people threatened by DV have access to housing, childcare, counseling, and other needed services.

We will create a domestic-violence-focused flexible funding reserve that addresses problems and expenses before they lead to rent arrears and the possibility of homelessness, helping domestic violence survivors and their children remain housed after a case of domestic violence. The administration will work with and listen to domestic violence survivors to determine which pathways are appropriate.

 

Question 13

Opioid deaths have ravished communities throughout NYC. In the first two months of 2020, 440 people died. How will you tackle this continuing public health crisis? What will you do differently than the outgoing administration to save lives?

More New Yorkers die of drug overdoses than homicides, suicides, and motor vehicle crashes combined. After seven consecutive years of increases, the number and rate of overdose deaths in New York City finally declined in 2018. Despite that, data show that these decreases are not evenly distributed across neighborhoods, and that gains are not uniform across race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. 

While much progress has been made, we need to go further and focus especially on neighborhoods where treatment has been limited. Through a comprehensive, whole-of-government approach, we will focus on prevention, treatment, and recovery. 

The goal is not to shame anyone into not seeking treatment and help for their addiction but rather give them the tools they need in a harm-reduction approach to support recovery and reduce relapse. Our goal is to prevent opioid misuse and to do that we will invest in evidence-based prevention programs in schools, hospitals, and in partnership with communities. In coordination with our 15 minute neighborhoods, we will make connections to our health care services, including primary care physicians, to help residents sustain their recovery. 

We will also aim to develop multilingual and culturally competent education campaigns so that the necessary information reaches the greatest number of people. 

We must work on reducing inappropriate opioid prescribing, and that takes coordination with our health system. Through improved data sharing, education, and guidelines, we can change prescribing practices. This will encourage evidence-based alternatives that will lead to fewer people having their first exposure to opioids be through legal means. 

The next step in assisting those struggling with opioid addiction is working toward preventing overdose deaths. With a focus on high-need communities, we will put Naloxone, an overdose-reversal medication, in the hands of everyone who needs it. We will provide training on how to administer this medicine so that those who are in dire need can be saved. 

In the communities hit hardest by the opioid crisis, we must start by establishing the city’s first Safe Use Community Centers, taking substance use off the streets and making treatment options more accessible. Similar centers outside the US have been shown to lower drug-related deaths, ambulance calls, and HIV infections, all without increasing crime, injection drug use, or return to use. 

We also need to reconsider who is responding to these overdose incidents. To reduce avoidable arrests and hospitalizations, we will strengthen the emergency response to crisis events by trained clinicians and peers, and keep the police focused on the most violent crimes. 

Lastly, for those residents that are on the path to recovery, we need to offer support to help them get over the finish line and stay addiction free. To do this, we will expand access to medication-assisted treatment services. 

For those who are both homeless and suffering from addiction, we will work toward housing them by investing in supportive housing units with high-quality, on-site services that are targeted toward those in recovery. We will also invest in street outreach service programs.

 

Question 14

NYPD and EMT responded to all 154,000 mental health calls in 2020, how will you expand and strengthen Mayor de Blasio’s test programs to keep NYC police out of mental health crisis calls?

People with mental illness are 16 times more likely to die in a police encounter, and in New York City, at least 16 people with mental illness have been killed by the police in the last five years alone. More than half of the people jailed at Rikers have a mental health treatment need, and nearly 20% have a serious mental illness. 

In order to ensure that New Yorkers are getting the help they need in moments of crisis, we must move mental health response entirely into the domain of public health and away from law enforcement, and we must adjust City resources accordingly. 

This means creating a dedicated mental health crisis hotline to divert calls from 911 and investing in frontline mental health crisis resources to respond to these emergencies, including social workers, counselors, and emergency medical technicians. This effort would follow the example of successful, decades-old models like CAHOOTS in Oregon, where in ~25,000 mental health crisis calls in 2019, only 150 (0.6%) required law enforcement back up. This approach would expand and improve the city’s mobile crisis teams as first steps toward a longer-term and holistic approach that goes beyond traditional crisis intervention. By the end of Shaun’s first term, police will no longer be the default response to mental health emergencies. 

We must also invest in community-based housing and support programs to build on crisis response. People in crisis often need transitional and supportive housing programs, primary health care, community-based mental health and social services like Fountain House, help with substance abuse challenges as a next step to help stabilize during and after a crisis, and the creation of on-ramps to longer-term recovery. These programs must be sure to focus on those too often unheard and unseen, like the elderly, who have specific mental health needs. 

We also will expand funding for mental health and addiction Alternative to Incarceration (ATI) programs and pre-trial diversion programs, and commit to priority decarceration of Riker’s Island for people with mental health conditions, especially serious mental illness. 

We will address the failures of the federal government to provide federal funds for needed inpatient psychiatric treatment, which is only one part of the needed multifaceted response to people in crisis. In the meantime, we will work with the State to establish a Mental Health Care Crisis Response Fund to cover this inpatient psychiatric care deficit as we advocate for federal reform.

 

Question 15

According to the Coalition for the Homeless, “In January 2021, there were 55,915 homeless people, including 17,645 homeless children, sleeping each night in the New York City municipal shelter system”. What do you plan to do differently than the current administration to combat the issue of homelessness, particularly houselessness among women and households headed by single women with children in NYC?

Homelessness is a solvable problem. We cannot accept the status quo nor solve homelessness with homeless programs alone. An emergency shelter system is essential for families and individuals in crisis, but the focus of past administrations has been to build a larger and larger system, draining money from permanent housing. We will spend smarter, moving our city from a right to shelter towards a right to housing, ensuring that all New Yorkers have access to the housing support they need.

We can do this by creating an improved system of emergency rental assistance and other services to help people stay housed when facing economic setbacks to avoid homelessness altogether.

We can do this by coordinating better across our own City agencies to ensure that people do not fall through the cracks but instead receive the support they need.

We can do this by operating a well-run homeless system that efficiently gets people into permanent housing as quickly as possible so they can rebuild their lives.

And we can do this by maximizing all resources available from all levels of government. We are committing to the following policies and programs:

• Invest in keeping people in their homes
• Provide appropriate housing and services
• Increase accountability and improve citywide coordination
• Protect domestic violence survivors

To read more, go to: https://shaunfornyc.com/issues/housing/#Homelessness

 

Education & Childcare

Question 16

In NYC, less than half of 3rd to 8th grade students are meeting proficiency standards on ELA or Math state exams. Rates are far lower for Black and Hispanic students. What is your plan for achieving an educational system where all public school students are meeting or exceeding basic standards, regardless of race, income or zip code?

The dual pandemics of COVID-19 and ongoing systemic racism exposed deep-rooted injustices in New York City’s education systems. They have also highlighted the strength and resilience of families, students, and educators to innovate and persevere through unprecedented times. As we work to recover from COVID-19, we must rebuild and reimagine our educational system, tackling long-standing inequities to create real pathways to economic opportunity for all public school students; valuing New York City’s diversity by creating integrated and inclusive opportunities for all students; and carefully rebuilding trust and partnering with families and educators to reimagine together. To do so will require us to draw not just on the traditional resources of our public schools but on all of New York City’s enormous assets, bringing all sectors to the table to support our children’s future: challenging our business leaders to help our students and schools recover, and define the needs of the future economy and ensure equitable access to relevant apprenticeships, jobs and internships that put every student on track to a family-sustaining job; better utilizing our cultural resources—our arts, our museums, our libraries, our parks—to enhance and extend the educational opportunities of our students, families, and educators; and improving coordination with nonprofit and community-based organizations that can better engage historically underserved communities, and nimbly address short-term recovery needs and long-term capacity challenges.

Prior to the pandemic, the public high school graduation rate in New York approached a historic 80%. And yet substantial gaps still existed, with students from low-income households, students of color, multilingual students, students in temporary housing, and students with disabilities too often left behind. At the college level, the CUNY system is a jewel that will be central to New York City’s recovery, and they have rightfully received national recognition for their groundbreaking work to improve completion rates. But there is work to be done to scale CUNY’s effective programs, improve completion rates and set students up for career success. At both the high school and college level, opportunity gaps mean that students from low income households and students of color complete their educations at lower than average rates and are less likely to enter family-sustaining careers.

We must have the vision to reimagine an educational system that values and supports the remarkable diversity of New York City’s students, families and educators, providing every student equitable access to critical resources and support structures they deserve. We must provide meaningful pathways within and beyond the classroom, birth through career, that open doors to economic opportunity. We must close longstanding resource and outcome gaps, provide safe, engaging, culturally responsive and inclusive learning environments, draw from both the innovations of New York City’s educators and existing evidence about what works, and prepare all of our city’s students for family-sustaining jobs for decades to come. And we must have the focus to carry that vision through and make it real.

Our plan will focus on:

• Repairing the Systemic Damage from COVID, while Tackling Pre-existing Inequities to Better Serve All Students
• Applying a System-wide Focus on Diversity, Integration and Inclusion for Students and Educators
• Reimagining Pathways from Birth through Post-secondary that Open Doors to Economic Opportunity
• Investing in New York City Libraries as Neighborhood Learning Assets

To read more, please go to: https://shaunfornyc.com/issues/education/

 

Question 17

Five years after graduates filed a complaint that their Yeshivas didn’t provide a basic education as required by law, the city produced a report that found 26 of 28 Yeshivas investigated still did not meet Substantial Equivalency standards. Beyond “working with Yeshiva leaders” what will you do differently than Mayor De Blasio to get compliance?

Every child deserves the right to a quality education in New York City and I am committed to ensuring that every school, whether secular, charter or public is providing academic rigor and preparing them for college and careers. As I understand it, most NYC private schools, including most yeshivas, are meeting these State standards. But where that is not the case, that needs to be addressed – just as it must when public schools are falling short. As Mayor, I would appoint people knowledgeable about the communities and traditions of these schools as well as about high-quality instruction and New York standards to handle the city’s role in ensuring state standards are met in private religious schools, while also working closely with community leaders and the State who has primary responsibility for setting and enforcing standards. But where the law is not being met, there should be consequences.

 

Question 18

Teen pregnancy, dating violence, prostitution and online sex harassment continue to derail students’ abilities to learn and live free of violence and abuse. What is your plan to ensure age-appropriate sex education and a healthy relationships curriculum is mandated and delivered to every NYC child?

One thing the pandemic has taught us, although we should have known it before, is that students’ academic success is deeply dependent on their socio-emotional and physical health and wellbeing. My plans for education cover all of this comprehensively. We will work to ensure that students are provided with a holistic, comprehensive sex education curriculum in order to ensure that they are able to engage with their schooling to the fullest potential. We also will work more broadly to build safe, responsive school environments that build community and trust among all adults and students in the school while ensuring schools are equipped to prevent and handle sexual harassment and other kinds of discrimination within their walls.

We support the implementation of New York’s standards for health education and AIDS/HIV prevention, making sure to comprehensive sexual education and acknowledge that the risks of teen pregnancy, dating violence, prostitution and online sex harassment seriously impact students’ ability to participate actively in their schooling. We will continue to support the Condom Availability Program, a program that requires schools to provide condoms in school buildings, and the expansion of health resource rooms, rooms that are safe spaces for students staffed with trained staff members who are required to maintain confidentiality. Research has demonstrated that the provision of condoms to school-age students does not increase sexual activity among young people but does increase the likelihood that sexually active teens will employ condoms—significantly reducing their risks for pregnancy and sexual transmitted infections. We will look to the California Healthy Youth Act, which took effect in January 2016, as a guide. Under this act, students are required to attend classes that emphasize skill-based knowledge of healthy, positive, and safe relationships and learn to understand sex as a natural part of maturing. In addition the act requires that information be presented in a medically accurate and unbiased manner and include appropriate language about LGBTQ+ sex and development. This act is designed to spark conversations about safe sex and healthy relationships in a way that feels accessible to all students, regardless of sexual or gender orientation, and we believe that these conversations are mandatory at the school level in order to help keep our students safe and well.

 

Question 19

What will you do to address the child care crisis that hinders women’s workforce participation, economic stability for families, and access to quality and affordable early education for children?

I will work with my Chief Equity Officer to make sure that families across the city all have access to the necessary services like child care so that parents who want to return to work are able to do so.

Early childhood classrooms are among the most segregated educational spaces in the city and country, due to a mix of residential segregation, family preference, and the fragmented early education landscape, with its mix of longstanding, targeted public programs such as Head Start and Early Head Start, newer universal and targeted programs, and private programs that are frequently unaffordable for working families. The city should work with DOE and CBO child care provider centers to find creative ways to encourage more integration of programs and classrooms through subsidies and technical assistance to providers to blend public (Head Start, state, city) and private funding sources.

 

Question 20

Please describe what steps you will take to address the disproportionate amount of Black and Brown girls who are pushed out of school and into the juvenile detention system. What do you intend to do to stop the school to prison pipeline?

In order to ensure the best possible academic outcomes for our students, we must dismantle practices that focus on policing and disciplining students and make schools unsafe for many students of color—contributing to the school-to-prison pipeline. We must remove police from schools, starting with schools that employ multiple School Resource Officers (SROs), following the example of cities like Minneapolis, Oakland, Denver, and Portland.

Some of the savings should be reinvested in Positivity, Prevention, and Relationship Response Coordinators, trained in child development, de-escalation, and understanding how trauma and life experiences impact behavior, to create a positive learning environment. Current SROs will be supported in transitioning to these new roles if they are interested and ready to participate in the necessary training, or in being absorbed into the New York Police Department if they prefer to remain in law enforcement.

Removing police officers from schools is just the start; we must also remove all vestiges of prison culture by eliminating metal detectors, on-campus arrests, and handcuffing (except in the extremely limited circumstances where student and educator safety is actually and immediately in danger), and incident reporting for routine student behavior that leads to police intervention and police records. These practices create a hostile climate instead of a supportive learning environment and lead to police records that launch students—especially students of color—into the school-to-prison pipeline.

 

Question 21

Do you support decriminalizing sex buying and promoting prostitution, and why? If decriminalized, would you designate a sex trade zone? Would you license brothels and collect taxes? What would be the process to decide which neighborhoods would be deemed commercial sex districts?

The first priority of the next mayor must be to keep New Yorkers safe and healthy while helping them access all the opportunities they need to live comfortable, stable lives and addressing longstanding issues of inequity in our city. This guiding principle and our commitment to work closely with the communities most directly impacted by our decisions, have informed how we’ve developed all of my campaign’s extensive and detailed policy plans.

With that in mind, we are currently discussing how to best approach decriminalization such that we respect the dignity of sex workers while also preserving their safety and security. Bringing sex work out of the shadows will surely remedy some of the factors that currently contribute to dangerous situations for sex workers, and we want to make sure that we are prepared to properly address every possible repercussion of decriminalization. We look forward to working with organizations like yours to make this a reality.

 

Question 22

Please describe what makes you uniquely qualified to lead New York City at this time.

I believe I am the most qualified, experienced candidate in this field because I was the Secretary for Housing and Urban Development in the Obama-Biden Administration, and subsequently served as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, managing the $4 trillion federal budget.

My past service taught me what it means to lead in moments of crisis, much like the one New York is facing today. I became Housing Commissioner here in New York City after 9/11, and helped to rebuild our City. Early in my career and then during my tenure as Housing Commissioner, I helped the Brownsville, East New York and South Bronx communities build Nehemiah housing, one of the most successful housing efforts in the nation that created more than 5,000 affordable homes.

I also created the Center for NYC Neighborhoods, the nation’s first response of its kind to the foreclosure crisis to save New Yorker’s homes and preserve Black and Brown wealth. President Obama asked me to be Housing Secretary in the midst of the worst housing crisis of our lifetime and then tasked me with leading this city back after Hurricane Sandy hit our shores. As HUD Secretary, I helped families across the country rent or buy affordable homes, revitalized distressed communities, fought discrimination and dramatically reduced homelessness.

Three weeks into my time as Director of the Office of Management of Budget, Ebola hit the US. And we worked to make sure that a global threat did not become a pandemic that would cost hundreds of thousands of American lives. And during my time managing the federal budget we invested in a broad range of progressive priorities, like the Affordable Care Act, while still bringing down our budget faster than at any time since World War 2.

I deeply believe that in order to properly serve and lift up all New Yorkers, my Administration must not only apply a lens of equity to all of our policies, but also create a structure of accountability where we consistently engage with communities and measure our progress.

One of my principle policies aimed at achieving this is the designation of our City’s first Chief Equity Officer to set goals, keep track of our progress, and coordinate across all NYC agencies to ensure progressive achievements.

At the individual issue level, my campaign has committed to including equity-focused recommendations within each one of our comprehensive policy platforms, from establishing a School Diversity and Integration Office within the Department of Education and applying an equity review to short-term budgetary and staffing reductions and adjustments within schools to ensure each New York City student has a chance at a good education, to launching Equity Corporate Commitments meant to drive substantially higher Black, Latinx, and Asian job participation in high-wage and middle-income work.

Underlying all of these efforts is a deep belief that collaboration and open conversation are vital to helping a community thrive. I look forward to discussing specific policy questions and partnering with you to address your community’s most pressing challenges.