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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Tonight at 07:00, here on the station, it's the first official Democratic primary debate for New York City comptroller. WNYC's Brigid Bergin will be one of the questioners. Then I'll be here when the debate ends, at 8:30 tonight, for a post-debate call-in, your reactions with me and Brigid and WYNC's Gwynne Hogan, who's covering that race.

In the mayoral race, the last day has seen Eric Adams tearfully show reporters the home in Brooklyn that he owns and spends time at to fend off charges from his rivals that he really lives in New Jersey. He does own another home there with his girlfriend. There was a big endorsement for Maya Wiley from the New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams yesterday, and politicians on the most progressive end of the spectrum seem to be further coalescing around Wiley.

Another notable endorsement this week that we haven't mentioned yet, StreetsPAC came out for Kathryn Garcia. StreetsPAC has a transportation agenda released jointly with groups such as Transportation Alternatives and the League of Conservation Voters, that it says is for redesigning city streets to prioritize safety, improve transit access, more red-light cameras, and more. They want more protected bike lanes too. They endorse Garcia. Early voting begins in two days in the New York primary.

We'll get a take on the campaign now from former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who ran for mayor herself in 2013, but lost to Bill de Blasio in the primary. These days, she is president and CEO of Win, the largest provider of shelter, social services, and supportive housing for homeless families in the city. Maybe you saw her New York Times op-ed last week, called What’ll It Take for New York City to Elect a Woman as Mayor? That's a fair question, considering that the history of male to female among New York City mayors is 109 to nothing. Chris, it's great to have you on the show again, welcome back to WNYC.

Christine Quinn: Thank you very much.

Brian Lehrer: Let's jump right into your op-ed. You wrote every time you hear Andrew Yang say, "Kathryn Garcia would make a great first deputy mayor" or Eric Adams question the civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley's knowledge of policing, you want to scream. Why do you want to scream?

Christine Quinn: I want to scream because it's two men minimizing. When Yang says that, it's like he's patting Kathryn on the head like she's a puppy dog or something. These are two women with accomplished agendas, with significant careers, very intelligent women, and the way that Eric and Andrew speak of them is as to erase their entire career and their ability to be mayors themselves. It's as if they only exist to support and help a man who would be mayor.

Brian Lehrer: Your perception of your own candidacy in 2013 was that you were ready for your record and ideas to get scrutinized, which of course they did, but you didn't think you'd also become the latest woman in New York politics whose gender and personal attributes would be in the spotlight. Looking back on 2013, in what ways do you think that happened most that might have affected the outcome?

Christine Quinn: Well, I think, looking back, I was naive to not have expected that. I think everything was scrutinized as it related to me, my weight, my looks, my voice. I said in the op-ed people apparently, I've been told, didn't like my voice. Well was Ed Koch melodious? Seriously, right? I was a bully. I was too aggressive. I was too loud. All things that-- I mean, I'm not a bully, but I'm aggressive. I'm loud. I push. That's how you get things done.

I regret, looking back, that I tried to soften those edges. I've said I wish my first commercial was, "I'm tough. I'm aggressive. I'm annoying, and that's what you want in the mayor." Those things are true and I've used those attributes to advocate successfully in the past five years for homeless families. The thing is, Brian, that if you're loud, aggressive, pushy, and you're a man, you're seen as effective. You're held up as the picture of somebody who's getting things done and not letting anything stand in their way. If you're a woman, you're not ladylike. You're too ambitious.

You're the ever unfixable, unlikable. It just shows that that still exists, that [inaudible 00:05:08] that was thrown on Liz Warren, for example, and that it still exists. Shows us we still have a problem, not shocking, of sexism and misogyny in the voting public and we have to talk about it to get rid of it.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, your calls to talk about it with former City Council Speaker and President and CEO of the homeless shelter and services network Win and author of The New York Times op-ed called What’ll It Take for New York City to Elect a Woman as Mayor?, Christine Quinn, 646-435-7280. Listeners, how much is gender a factor for you in assessing the mayoral candidates this year? How do you fight against unintentional bias against women candidates in your own perception, or anything else you want to say or ask, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

For the record and for transparency, Chris, I haven't seen that you've made an endorsement in the mayoral campaign. Is that still the case?

Christine Quinn: I have not yet, no. I will say that Win, a 501(c)(3), so there'll be no endorsement, we did hold a mayoral forum with Advocates for Children, another 501(c)(3), on family homelessness and poverty, and three of the candidates participated and it was really illuminating.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think gender will be a plus factor in your own personal rankings, and what role would you like it to play for other voters?

Christine Quinn: I would like gender and race to be thought of as people rank as a positive. That the idea that bringing someone to the table, who represents communities that have not been there, or are often not there, should be a positive. We're a diverse city. Queens is the most diverse county in the country. We should have diversity in [inaudible 00:07:14] and people, I hope, will see diversity as a strength in governing.

When you have diverse people governing, I believe, they look around the table and say, "Who's missing? What community have we forgotten? Who hasn't been asked, "What do you need?"" I think as we recover from the pandemic, those types of inclusive questions are going to be critical for us to recover in a way where we are better than we were before.

Brian Lehrer: Alex in Greenwich Village, you're on WNYC with Christine Quinn. Hi, Alex.

Alex: Hi, Miss Quinn. I'm wondering if you can shed light for our voters, myself included, on what questions we should be asking our mayoral candidates and what responses we should be looking for in terms of what their plan is to fix our shelter system? What aspects are working now? What aspects are not working? Then the larger cities approach to homelessness and what needs to change and what needs to be fixed and what is working now?

Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much.

Christine Quinn: Absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: You could do that over the next two and a half hours, I think, Chris.

Christine Quinn: Right. I'll say quickly. 65 to 70% of the people in shelter are families with children. We need to make sure our next mayor sees that and focuses policy there as well. As on single homeless, you hear a lot about the street homeless. From the candidates, you should hear a lot about families. 82% of the families at Win have been in shelter before so our system is broken. We need to make a trauma-informed. We need to add to the housing plan unit that actually are affordable to people leaving shelters.

The first iteration of de Blasio's housing plan had not one unit that was affordable to somebody leaving shelter and we need to have a deputy mayor whose sole charge is ending homelessness. Right now the Department of Homeless Services and the Department of Housing report to two different mayors, two things that are critically, critically linked.

I obviously think that working with nonprofits versus the city running the shelters is a good thing and we should continue that. There's not a lot else in the structure right now, from a bureaucratic perspective or a priority perspective that I would keep. The key question, Alex, really should be to our mayor, "Are you going to end homelessness or are you going to keep managing it like mayor after mayor has done, which has yielded us only a growth in homelessness, not an end to it?"

Brian Lehrer: To follow up on that, do you see the mayoral candidates as running along the spectrum from what they need is "housing, housing, housing" to what they need is "lots of supportive services", or how would you characterize the leading Democratic hopefuls to distinguish them from each other for a caller like Alex who's trying to do that on this issue?

Christine Quinn: Well, I'll say what I heard at our mayoral forum, where, I think, the fact that Maya Wiley, Kathryn Garcia, and Andrew Yang participated says a lot about how they see this issue. I think Maya had the most deep understanding of the connection between shelter and permanent house. Not so much wanting to have a lot more shelters, but understanding that it takes time to develop and build and subsidize housing. In the meantime, people need a place to live and be, and have issues and trauma that needs to be supportive.

I think Kathryn talked about really not building any more shelters and an exclusive focus on or close exclusive focus on more housing. We really believe you need both. Andrew was more focused on street homelessness than family homelessness.

Brian Lehrer: Yang is running a TV commercial that says he would cut homelessness in half. Do you think that's possible-

Christine Quinn: I do.

Brian Lehrer: -and do you think he's got the plans to back it up?

Christine Quinn: I don't know if he has the plans yet. I absolutely believe it's possible and I really applaud people for putting specific goals out there. Because if you don't have a goal, you're never going to have a game plan and you're never going to be held accountable. I absolutely believe that's possible. Actually, it's one of the things that's in our blueprint for homelessness.

Brian Lehrer: Jennifer in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hello, Jennifer.

Jennifer: Yes. Good morning, Brian. Thank you for taking my call and for the great work you do every day. I want to say it is a top, top, top priority for me to see a woman mayor or at least a join ticket on the basis that we certainly have seen certainly throughout the crisis women leaders throughout the world have handled things far better than their male counterparts.

I do think that they bring a sensibility and a sensitivity in addressing very serious and long-standing issues that men just don’t possess. I think if we're a city that values the kind of openness and liberal values, and such that we endorse, it is high time that we have a woman mayor. At least women in very key positions in the mayor's office.

Brian Lehrer: Jennifer, thank you very much.

Female Speaker: Jennifer, bravo. I couldn't agree with you more.

Brian Lehrer: Well, do you think there are things that a woman is more likely to bring to the office of mayor as a positive quality than a man, which I think she was saying in part of that call or does that notion itself play too much into gender stereotypes?

Christine Quinn: No, I think there absolutely are skills. Look, women are still likely, if there is a second parent, to work outside of the home and have the main role in household work. Also, there are more women single-headed households than male single-headed households. All of that together means that women with children are far more likely to have more on their plate and to be massive multitaskers, and to have a better ability because they're dealing with so much of dealing with stress and being able to prioritize. Multitasking, prioritizing, things you want in a mayor.

Also, a woman particularly if she's been a single mother has faced, or as a woman of color, faced tremendous discrimination in her life, whether it was subtle, or outwardly aggressive. You want to have someone who understands discrimination, understands what it means to get looked over, understands what it means to walk into a room, make a suggestion, and people pretend like they didn't even hear you, five minutes later, a man make the same suggestion is embraced as the greatest idea ever. Having had those experiences make you a better listener and make you a better leader. As well as the fact that women are just better multitaskers, it's a fact

Brian Lehrer: Justin in Astoria, you're on WNYC with Christine Quinn. Hi, Justin.

Justin: Hi, Brian. First of all, I want to thank you for the work you do every day. I want to thank Christine for being one of the founders at the Anti-Violence Project.

Christine Quinn: Oh, thank you.

Justin: I've used their services and volunteered with them and I'm going to be volunteering with them again.

Christine Quinn: Oh, great.

Justin: Yes. I want to come to your question though about why is it that you were criticized for the things you were criticized for when you were running for mayor, and saying that a woman shouldn't be like that. Now, Kathryn Garcia, she's running for mayor, and she's nothing like you in style or not much in substance either. Yet people were saying about her, "Well, she's too mamby-pamby, she wouldn't be assertive enough. Can a woman handle this job?" That's the double standard. How do you overcome that? [crosstalk]

Christine Quinn: You're right--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead, Chris.

Christine Quinn: Sorry. You're right. That is the double standard. At the moment, if you don't walk the perfect line, which, what the hell is that? As a woman, you're somehow too aggressive or not aggressive enough and both are held against you. Seriously, both Kathryn and I got endorsed by The New York Times, which is incredibly significant in a race. I believe what we have to do is keep having women run for every level out there.

Because if we don't have a woman this year, we will have it at some point so we need a deep bench. We need to talk about what happens to women candidates. We need to raise both the issue I raised and the one you raised so people know what's going on. As Brian said before, so people can clue in subconsciously what's happening. Often women are harder on women than men are, and really women can bring that double standard.

Thank you for raising that the way it came out. It's interesting. If you look at literature, campaign flyers, et cetera, about women candidates, it's always written-- it's not usually strong, it's usually strong enough, so you make it clear, yes, you could run the police department, but you're not going to tell the male police chief what to do. We need to keep pushing to overcome things like that.

Brian Lehrer: We've got about two minutes left in the segment. I really thought you were going to run this year considering a number of things. Many people saw you as more competent than de Blasio from the start, and he's turned out to be a weak manager in many people's eyes. Also, if you were seen as too close to business and Bloomberg, and that was a weakness in 2013 in the way people saw you, now you've been dedicating yourself to homeless people for five years. It was an excellent rounding of your recent resume for a run. Why didn't you?

Christine Quinn: I thought about it a lot. I really, really did. I gave it a lot of thought. Ultimately, I felt I had made a commitment to Win, and that I hadn't finished my work there, and that it just wasn't the right time for me to leave Win. If this had been maybe a year later, two years later. It was a very, very hard decision, but really felt my work wasn't done.

Brian Lehrer: Might you run for anything in the future, maybe governor next year if Cuomo doesn't run again?

Christine Quinn: [chuckles] That's a big if. I loved being in government. I loved every minute of it. I loved being able to get things done. I loved the team of people I got to work with. I really hope someday I have that great honor again to be an elected official, to be part of government of the city or state of New York, but I don't have any specific plans.

Brian Lehrer: You answered those so efficiently that we have an extra minute. As the state and federal eviction moratoriums expire, back to the topic of homelessness, are you expecting an explosion of additional homelessness?

Christine Quinn: I really am and I'm so worried about it. That's why we've proposed it at Win, the idea of a stay-at-home voucher. Because right now the vast majority of vouchers, the money you get to pay your rent if you're leaving shelter, most of them, you have to go into shelter to get. We've proposed a stay-at-home voucher, a special one post-COVID that would exist for, say, two years. so people could get help paying their rears and paying their rent until they get a job, much cheaper than exploding the system.

Brian Lehrer: We leave it there because now we really are out of time with Christine Quinn, President and CEO of Win, the largest provider of shelter, social services, and supportive housing for homeless families in the city, and the former New York City Council Speaker. Great conversation, thank you so much for giving us the time.

Christine Quinn: Thanks, Brian. Yes, be well.

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