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Brian Lehrer: Brian on WNYC. April is Ask the Mayor Tryouts month here on the Brian Show. Just like we do Ask the Mayor every Friday with my questions and yours for Mayor Bill de Blasio, we have invited the eight leading candidates for the June primary to join us this month to do an Ask the Mayor segment with my questions and yours for them. All eight have accepted. We started this last week with candidates Maya Wiley and Scott Stringer, and we continue now with candidate Shaun.

He was President Obama's Housing and Urban Development Secretary, and then Obama's Office of Management and Budget Director. He had also been Mayor Bloomberg's Commissioner of Housing Preservation and Development. It's my questions and yours now for candidate Shaun at 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or you can tweet a question, just use the same hashtag that we do on Fridays #AskTheMayor. Just let me remind you of the ground rules that we had established on this. We want these to be policy questions, not got you questions or attacks.

If you get on the air and we think you are a plant from a rival campaign just trying to make our guest look bad, we will give you very short shrift. With all of that as prelude, Secretary Donovan welcome back to WNYC, and thanks for doing an Ask the Mayor Tryout.

Shaun Donovan: Hey, Brian, it's so great to be back on the show. Thanks for having me.

Brian: I know you've all done about a million and a half Zoom forums, is there a most common ask the candidate question that transcends the topic of the individual Zoom forum that members of the public tend to ask you?

Shaun: Brian, in the midst of a pandemic where we got more homeless folks in this city than since the Great Depression, when we have more people on the verge of eviction because more than 500,000 New Yorkers have lost their jobs, the question I hear most is about housing. How are you going to help me stay in my home? How are you going to end homelessness in this city? It goes right back to the way I felt as a kid growing up in this city. I saw homelessness exploding on the streets and that was the thing that really lit the fire in me to become a public servant.

I started volunteering in a homeless shelter in college, went to work for the National Coalition for the Homeless. It bothers me a lot, Brian. I got to say that we have more homeless people on our streets now than we did even back then when I was growing up in this city. It's a solvable problem. I know that because I led the strategy for President Obama, that dramatically reduced homelessness around the country. In fact, in 80 cities and states, we ended homelessness, not reduced it, but ended it. I know this is a solvable problem. I hear this question all the time from New Yorkers.

Brian: What do you mean ended homelessness? How did somebody do that in any city of your choice?

Shaun: Literally, we got to zero homeless veterans on the streets and in shelters in 80 cities across the country. The way to end it, and this is what we need to do in New York is to reimagine the right to shelter in New York as a right to housing. It's called Housing First. It's actually something we developed here in New York City. We invented the first what's called Supportive Housing, and what that is is permanent housing with the services that folks need to get back on track in their lives.

As you well know, Brian, it isn't just a problem with shelter if you're going to solve homelessness. It is really going at the issues of mental health. We've had an explosion of mental health challenges around this city in the midst of COVID. It's getting at the substance abuse problems we've seen growing on our streets, at Rikers, in our prisons.

It's really bringing all of those pieces together to make sure that as soon as someone is at risk, as soon as someone comes out of Rikers or the mental health wing at one of our hospitals, we direct them immediately to this housing rather than letting them fall through the cracks and end up on our streets.

Brian: Just to be clear what the claim was, you're saying homelessness was ended for veterans, in particular, in those 80 cities?

Shaun: That's right, but we also made dramatic progress on street homelessness, family homelessness in lots of places as well. Where we got to zero on veterans, we did it because of great partnerships at the federal level, but also great leadership from mayors. It's one of the things that really showed me the unbelievable, that really profound difference that a mayor can make with good leadership.

Brian: Before we go to some calls, having been Mayor Bloomberg's housing commissioner, how do you look back on that administration's record? I think some voters interested in housing as an issue might think that he and so maybe you allowed too much market-rate housing to be built plus certain zoning changes exacerbating gentrification, plus the street homelessness population grew. I know Mayor de Blasio blames the Bloomberg administration for having ended a certain program that the state had started.

Shaun: First of all, Brian, specifically on my record, the leadership I provided, we did actually make progress on homelessness while I was housing commissioner. I went and worked with the state to create what's called New York/New York Three, which was the biggest investment we'd ever made in the services for the supportive housing that I just spoke about. We did make progress. What I would also say is we made progress on dramatically accelerating both the creation and the preservation of affordable housing during that time.

I took what was a 65,000 unit housing plan and turned it into the most aggressive housing plan in the nation. We did make progress. I think what we learned, remember during that time, Brian, that was when the mortgage crisis was first emerging. One of the biggest challenges we faced was that people, particularly Black and brown homeowners across this city were starting to lose their homes.

I created the first-ever effort across this city, it was called the Center for New York City Neighborhoods, to really attack that problem, to get the housing counseling, legal services to people that we needed to get them in their homes. I think if there's a lesson that I learned from the Bloomberg years that we then applied during the Obama years is you have to build more affordable housing. We do need to grow this city and to grow the amount of affordable housing that we have that is deeply affordable, but the challenge is you also have to keep people in their homes.

The displacement that we saw from the mortgage crisis, the evictions that we're seeing and could see right now with people out of work, means that we need to build on what I did during the Bloomberg years and really make sure every single New Yorker has a right to counsel and a right to get the help, the housing counseling, and the rental assistance that they need. Two specific things, Brian, one is Mayor de Blasio has promised to get a right to counsel, but he hasn't actually delivered.

I would deliver on that to make sure that every single New Yorker has access to the services and the legal protection they need. Second, we need to make sure that our rental assistance programs actually keep people in their homes. Right now, you basically have to end up at housing court and be evicted or on the verge of eviction before you get help. We need to make that rental assistance program much more flexible, invest in it more, and really make sure we're targeting people to stay in their homes.

That was a lesson I learned in the great recession. We developed a program at the federal level that was really, really effective at keeping people in their homes. I think that's going to be an enormously important part of the strategy at this moment when we're at risk of so much displacement and people losing their homes.

Brian: It's Ask the Mayor Tryouts month on the Brian Show, my questions and yours for the leading eight candidates hoping to be the next mayor of New York City. Today with candidate Shaun who did used to be the top housing official in Mayor Bloomberg's administration and in President Obama's administration. Fredricka in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Shaun Donovan. Hi, Fredricka.

Fredricka: Hi, thanks so much. Shaun, I wondered if you've acquainted yourself with any of the details of the city's proposal for rezoning in the historic districts of SoHo and NoHo. If so, I wondered what your opinion was? Please don't limit yourself to just the affordable housing aspect of the proposal which is so obviously needed. Thank you.

Brian: For background, and tell me if you think this is an accurate thumbnail Secretary Donovan, the controversy here is adding lower-income housing in the very high rent district of SoHo and NoHo, very affluent district.

Shaun: Brian, the first thing I would say is to go back to the point I made earlier which is we do need to add more affordable housing in this city. We do need to grow because we have a desperate shortage of affordable housing. We do need to find places across the city where we're going to add more housing, and we need to make sure that every community is doing its part. One of the problems we've seen over the last eight years is that the Mayor de Blasio administration has focused rezonings on lower-income, primarily Black and brown communities and not asked every community to do its share.

If you look back at my record during the Bloomberg years, we actually did focus creating more affordable housing in neighborhoods like the far Westside and near the Highline on the waterfront in Brooklyn and other places. We had a Bloomberg balanced record looking to a range of communities. I do think that there are places that we should be looking in Soho and NoHo to add affordable housing and make sure that every community is doing its share. I also want to say that that's not-- The other thing that I've heard from folks in SoHo and NoHo and surrounding neighborhoods is a concern about preserving the historic character of the neighborhood as well. Look, I'm an architect.

I studied planning as well as housing before coming back to New York and helping rebuild neighborhoods and I live in a historic district in Brooklyn. I understand as well that if we're going to continue to be a city that New Yorkers love, we need to preserve what makes our neighborhoods special, but I think you can do both. To be very specific, it means looking at avenues where more density is possible rather than the mid blocks in a lot of these rezonings. There is a way to be sensitive and to work very closely with communities on planning in a way that I've done over my career for the last 30 years and still be able to find ways to add housing that will create affordable housing for everyone in this city.

Brian: Bob in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with candidate Shaun Donovan. Hi, Bob.

Bob: Hi. My question has to do with education. I believe in my opinion, at least, there's a tension between policies that the de Blasio administration has announced that would help integrate the schools in the city against what are the desires, at least, of middle class and upper-middle-class parents and if you drive those students out of the schools, you in fact defeat the purpose of integration. How would you balance the needs of the two populations?

Shaun: I think this is such an important question. For me, it goes to one of the fundamental ways that I disagree with the way Mayor de Blasio has led, which is too often to look at ideology and politics to divide New Yorkers around tough issues, rather than find ways to bring them together. Let me just be specific, Bob, about this. We know that we have many highly successful schools that are also highly integrated. Some of them are screened, some are not. There are schools like dual-language schools, artspace schools, STEM-based schools.

I would expand those schools and make sure that we're creating more of them to really pull more and more New Yorkers toward integration when many of the other policies are tougher. I also think that when we get to the tougher issues around screens, gifted and talented programs, there are changes we need to make. I've proposed, for example, getting rid of middle-school screens and some other changes that I think would be important, but if we do that in the right way, if we bring parents, teachers, students, principals to the table, we can actually move schools towards greater integration, but also keep raising the bar on academic achievement.

Just to give you a very specific example, in Brooklyn, in district 15 in park slope, we've had a very good process that's brought the community together. They've changed their process to what's called a weighted lottery and the early results are really promising that we're seeing more integration, but also, what is a very strong district academically, is actually continuing to improve. I think there are actually a whole bunch of strategies we can pursue that will allow us to both achieve academic excellence and also create more equity in our schools which is really needed.

Brian: What's the most aggressive thing you would do toward more integration in what's been rated the most segregated school system in America?

Shaun: Well, Brian, I have a incredibly comprehensive aggressive education plan. The New York times called it the most detailed and comprehensive of any of the candidates. There are many things we need to do, but I think one of the most important things that I haven't mentioned is to recognize that we've got 85% of our students in our education system are students of color, but we have fewer than 45% teachers of color.

We know that if a student of color has a teacher, especially by third grade, that reflects who they are, they're much more likely to graduate. In addition to the changes I've talked about in terms of the type of schools, screens, other things, I think we've got to make a real effort, not just to attract, but also retain more teachers to ensure that our school system reflects our communities. One of my favorite ideas that I've come up with in that plan is what I call the education recovery core.

At this moment when our students have not only lost so much academically, but the trauma, the pain that they've been through, the relatives and the neighbors that they've lost in this pandemic, why not hire young people, CUNY students, recent graduates, who we hope are going to end up being the teachers of the future. Get them in the classroom side-by-side with our teachers to help on academic, but also social and emotional recovery. I call that the education recovery core.

Brian: You're emphasizing in answering my question, diversifying the teacher core and not so much diversifying the classrooms?

Shaun: No, no, no. We have to do both. We know that in addition to the things I talked about before, in terms of changes to schools, changes to screens and testing that another piece Brian is all the evidence around the country on education shows that we can raise academic achievement for students of color by diversifying who teaches them as well. It's one piece of the puzzle in solving this challenge. This is WNYC FM HD & AM New York, WNJTFM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms rRver.

We are New York and New Jersey public radio with New York City mayoral hopeful, Shaun Donovan here for Brian Show Ask the Mayor Try Out. Tomorrow morning, it'll be the con sanitation commissioner also running for mayor Catherine Garcia as the series continues with my questions and yours for the leading candidates. Robin Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Shaun Donovan. Hi, Rob.

Robin: Hey, how you doing? Before I get to my question, I just want to say, I loved your April 1st press release. I've been following the mayoral race for months now and it just brought some joy and lightness to my days. Thank you for that.

Brian: I'll let you ask your real question, but did you do in April fools press release?

Shaun: Well, Brian, you know that we're running the campaign of ideas and I've got a plan for just about everything. On April 1st, I released my plan to finally fix the New York Jets.

Brian: That's going to be a multi-year operation. Go ahead, Rob.

Robin: I've been following the privatization of NYCHA for a couple of years, the RAD program. I know that it's something that I've heard that in some ways you support, I'd like to understand better how you see-- If there are implementation details right now, how you would see fixing those? I know that there's been a lot more evictions from the developments that have gotten privatized. I'd just like to understand better, is that something--?

I know I've heard you say-- I watched it at one of your forums you said that that's not really supposed to happen, but if it is happening, does that mean that we need to slow down the program or change it or is there some other solution that you have in mind?

Brian: Thank you, Robin, let me say for the context of our listeners that that's a program that as he indicated has to do with certain privatization in NYCHA developments and secretary Donovan as HUD secretary under President Obama, NYCHA was among the many things under your purview and one could say that NYCHA conditions, at very least physical conditions, continue to deteriorate during those years.

Shaun: Rob, I'm so glad you asked this question because there's so much confusion about it. Let me just try to be very clear. RAD is not a privatization program. RAD is a program that shifts the funding of public housing from a type of funding that has been declining and neglected for decades by Congress after Congress, and shifts it to a different stream of funding called section eight, that has been rising for years.

The fundamental reason I chose to implement it was to make sure rather than continuing a decades long decline in the support of public housing in New York City, we gave NYCHA and every public housing authority around the country the opportunity to opt into a new funding that would help make sure that we preserve public housing in the future, and that also gave housing authorities the opportunity to access grants and tax credits and all other kinds of funding source that every other affordable housing in the world gets to access.

Mayor de Blasio chose to use RAD to privatize public housing, but that was not at all required by the program. In fact, I worked with mayors across the country who used RAD in ways that were 100% public. Public management, public rebuilding, public funding all of that. People have gotten confused about this. What I want to be clear about is we absolutely need to get the $40 billion that public housing needs to be fixed.

Remember more people live in public housing in New York City than live in Atlanta Georgia. It's the single most important housing resource we have for low income folks in New York. It has to be preserved. The only way we're going to get the $40 billion, the only way is to access that section eight funding. I could get more than $30 billion of the $40 billion we need through that. We need to have a separate conversation about who should actually manage-- Public housing should always be public, it should always be owned by the people of New York, and it should be preserved forever as public housing because it's precious.

We need to have an honest conversation in New York about whether the public housing authority which has failed for years to do a decent job managing, we have kids who are being poisoned by lead paint who are living in terrible conditions, is NYCHA itself capable of managing 180,000 units of housing? That is a very important conversation that needs to be had with the residents of public housing, with the people of New York City.

We should not confuse the issue by saying the only way to get funding is to privatize it. That's not right. We have options. We can create a preservation trust that is publicly owned that can access that section eight. There are non-profits that can get involved there. There are many different ways to do that, but unfortunately with mayor de Blasio having taken this issue on in a way that he hid behind RAD to say, "Oh, we have to privatize." He's confused a lot of New Yorkers including you Rob.

On your specific question about evictions, anyone who is eligible for public housing today will be eligible under a section eight funding stream. We need to make sure that those who are falling through the cracks, if there are folks being evicted or threatened with it that has to end and you can implement this change to section eight funding in a way that everybody is able to remain in their homes.

Brian: Let me ask you a question about background and identity. Some people think if possible it's time for a person of color and or a woman and or someone who grew up experiencing the downsides of the kinds of inequality that we've been talking about to be the next mayor. They really get it in their bones not just on paper or through professional experience and obviously you've been dedicated to too many of these issues but through professional experience about what needs to be done to raise up most of the people in the city.

They might think even if you have your values in the right place and good experience you grew up on the upper East side, went to Dalton, you're a white male, it's been reported that your father contributed $2 million, most of the money in the political action committee supporting your campaign, how much do you view your own identity and background as a factor you have to compensate for in order to consistently do the right thing or however you think voters should take it into account?

Shaun: Brian, I really appreciate you asking this question and I want to say a few things about it. First let me just talk about my history. I am both the grandson and son of immigrants. My grandfather was one of 10 poor Irish kids who grew up on the South side of London. As a teenager think about this, Brian, as a teenager he got on a boat alone to go to West Africa and then to South America to find work.

My dad grew up in Costa Rica and Lima Peru like so many millions of immigrants, he came to New York in search of a better future for himself and my family and he found it. He worked hard and he lived his American dream. That is my lived experience and I owe New York everything. I would also say that I became a public servant because I grew up in this city watching homelessness explode on our streets, watching communities like the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn literally crumbling to the ground.

It made me angry. It made me want to go help the city that had given me so much. I started volunteering in a homeless shelter in college as I said. I came back after I finished school and started working with amazing leaders like Bishop Johnny Ray Youngblood in the East Brooklyn congregations with Ana Vincente and Nos Cuidamos in the South Bronx. My lived experience is that I have for the last 30 years dedicated my life to working in communities that are so often left behind.

That is what made me when I was HUD secretary, lead the way on civil rights and racial equity. What I hear over and over again, Brian, from New Yorkers is they want two things. They want a mayor who actually knows how to lead the city out of crisis. No one in this race has the deep experience leading crisis after crisis that I do. Also, what they want is a mayor who will actually make a difference on racial equity.

After eight years of mostly rhetoric on this issue and not reality, not progress, I would ask New York voters to look at my record. I led the way on civil rights and fair housing in the Obama administration. In fact, when Donald Trump still had a Twitter account last year, he was attacking my work with the racist taunt that we were trying to destroy the suburbs by making sure Black and brown people could live wherever they choose. I was the first cabinet secretary in history to endorse marriage equality. I did pathbreaking work on transgender rights. I have again and again built teams that reflect the incredible diversity of this city and this country. My campaign team is majority women of color.

Brian: We're going to run out of time so I need to ask you a quick follow-up and then we can do a one minute lightning round to conclude. Should the fact that your father put in $2 million to support your campaign be a strike against you?

Shaun: I want to be very clear, Brian. My campaign I am following the law. There are dozens of these groups supporting many different candidates who are running. I don't coordinate with any of them and I am focused on my race. I am focused on talking to New Yorkers and working with them. This is not what I hear New Yorkers focused on. What I hear them focused on is how do we rebuild this from this pandemic? How do we make New York City a more equitable place for everyone?

Brian: All right, ready for a 60 second lightning round and then I know you got to go. Question one, did you think Amazon headquarters in Queens would have been more good or more bad for the city on balance?

Shaun: I would have made sure we had a plan to bring Amazon here that would have been more good than bad for the city.

Brian: Have you ever ridden a city bike.

Shaun: All the time. I actually rode one this morning Brian.

Brian: Do you own a car?

Shaun: I do.

Brian: If you're raising children or did raise children I don't know your family status, do they or did they attend public school the whole time?

Shaun: I am lucky to have been through this last year with my kids in college rather than high school or middle school and they graduated from private school in DC.

Brian: Do you have a favorite spectator sport?

Shaun: I would have to say soccer because my older son is captain of his soccer team at college. He grew up playing on the parade grounds in Brooklyn and all over the city, so love being on the sidelines.

Brian: Even though your plan on April fool's day was to fix the Jets. If you donate as a member to any arts organizations can you name one?

Shaun: A number of them actually, Brian. One of my favorite is Brooklyn Ballet which teaches classical ballet, hip hop, popping, all different forms of dance in all the public schools across Brooklyn.

Brian: Finally, with rank choice voting, is there anyone you would like your supporters to list second?

Shaun: I would say, and I talked about it a moment ago, Brian, I've been working on civil rights and fair housing for decades and I do have a lot of respect for the civil rights work that Maya Wiley has done.

Brian: That ends today's edition of Ask the Mayor Tryouts. Shaun Donovan, former HUD Secretary, former Office of Management and Budget Director both under President Obama, former Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner under Mayor Bloomberg. Thank you so much for doing this with us. We're going to have time for each of the candidates to come back one more time in May before the primary. We look forward to having you back then. Meanwhile, good luck as I say to all the candidates on the campaign trail.

Shaun: Brian it's been great to be with you. Look forward to coming back soon.

 

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