[music]

Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Happy winter solstice, by the way, today is the day with the least sunlight around here by hours in the day, and the least direct sunlight to this part of the globe. Winter began at 5:02 this morning. It starts to get gradually lighter from here and gradually up through the summer solstice six months from yesterday as it happens on Sunday, June 20th.

Then six months from tomorrow, that would be Tuesday, June 22nd, New York City voters could decide who the next mayor of the city will be. June 22nd will be the New York primary day. If there is no competitive Republican candidate, as there hasn't been in the last few elections. The very crowded democratic primary will be the mayoral election. It's not that far away.

We've begun interviewing all the major hopefuls and we continue with that now with Shaun Donovan. Not a household name, but one you may have heard, because when people say Shaun Donovan, it's usually followed by the word for the perennial number one issue in the city affordable housing. Donovan was president Obama's Housing and Urban Development Secretary. He was also the Housing Commissioner under mayor Michael Bloomberg. In a time of fiscal crisis in the city caused by the pandemic. It's also relevant that Shaun Donovan was also president Obama is Director of the office of management and budget for some of his time in Washington. Let's see what Shaun Donovan says he might bring to this race and to the city. Secretary Donovan, nice to have you on again. Welcome back to WNYC.

Shaun: Thank you, Brian. It's so great to be back on the show.

Brian: Let's talk first about affordable housing. People might hear your impressive resume and think, but wait, the affordable housing crisis only got worse in New York city during the Bloomberg and Obama years. It took the pandemic to bring rents down. Why should being part of those administrations, be such a selling point?

Shaun: Well, first of all, Brian, we should recognize that the work I led across this country, including in this city around homelessness, dramatically reduced homelessness. I grew up in this city at a moment when homelessness was exploding. It's what lit a fire in me to go to work on behalf of the city. I started volunteering in a homeless shelter in college, I worked for the national coalition for the homeless. When I led the strategy for president Obama, we dramatically reduced street and family homelessness.

In fact, partnering with Michelle Obama we ended veteran homelessness in more than 80 cities and States around the country. I'm a unique candidate to be able to dramatically reduce homelessness in the city at a time when we have more homeless folks sleeping on our streets than any time since the great depression. That's one piece of my record that folks should know especially at a time where homelessness is an issue that touches just about every New Yorkers life.

Brian: Let me check in on that for a second, because I don't have all the numbers in front of me. Didn't homelessness, including street homelessness, increase during the Bloomberg years?

Shaun: During my time Brian, when I was here we were actually able to reduce homelessness. I led the creation of a landmark agreement between the city and the state called New York/New York III, that dramatically expanded resources for what we call supportive housing. It's the single most important tool in ending street homelessness. We were able to make progress. Then as I said, when I went to the Obama administration leading the national strategy, we made really dramatic progress. We cut veteran homelessness in half across the country, reduced street homelessness by about 25% and reduced family homelessness by about 25% as well.

Brian: As Politico reports on your entrance into the race, the Bloomberg's administration built many new income restricted apartments. The billionaire mayor was often criticized for shaping a city of developments that catered to the rich, even as homelessness spiked, reading from Politico. Do you dispute that characterization of the record of those 12 years?

Shaun: Brian look, when I was Housing Commissioner in this city, we created the most aggressive affordable housing plan in the nation and we made real progress. In fact, I went up to Brook Avenue in the South Bronx to Via Verde the most sustainable, most beautiful, healthiest affordable housing, I think in the country. I created that when I was Housing Commissioner here. It's an example of the thing that we could do more broadly. I do think that we could go further and I would go further as mayor in terms of some of the strategies.

I particularly believe that as gentrification has become a more intense problem. Remember I was Housing Commissioner in this city in the wake of 911. There was a lot of fear about people leaving the city and gentrification in the last decade or so has become the primary challenge. I think that we could go farther on ensuring that we're preserving affordable housing. Making sure that tenants everywhere have a right to counsel and a right to the housing counseling they need to stay in their homes.

Look, one of the reasons president Obama chose me as housing secretary is I created the most innovative and earliest response to the foreclosure crisis, working in neighborhoods like Jamaica in Southeast Queens. I saw far too many, particularly families of color Black and brown families in this city whose homes were being stolen by foreclosure. I created the center for New York city neighborhoods, which dramatically increased resources for housing counseling, for legal protection. Those are the types of tools that we need in a moment when so many New Yorkers are worried about eviction.

As you know until the agreement was reached this weekend on the stimulus bill, we were at risk of having a tsunami of evictions in this city and across the country come January 1st. Those are the kinds of tools that we need to add to the tools that I created as Housing Commissioner, to make sure that we have the right affordable housing tools for this moment with which the city is facing.

Brian: Listeners, we can take a few phone calls for former Obama Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Shaun Donovan. Former Bloomberg housing preservation and development department commissioner, Shaun Donovan. Former Obama office of management and budget director, Shaun Donovan. They're all the same Shaun Donovan. 646-435-7280, as he is now running for mayor of New York city. 646-435-7280, or tweet a question @BrianLehrer.

Before we get into other things than housing, there is this I guess we could call it new tension in the city the last few years at least that's more explicit. Between the well-paying jobs and the gentrification they would presumably bring. Long Island City rejected the proposed Amazon headquarters. Sunset Park just recently rejected the proposed Industry City waterfront development because of the anticipated effects on affordability for people who live in the neighborhood. Were you for or against the Amazon deal? How would you address this tension in a city that needs both jobs and affordable housing?

Shaun: Brian, it's such an important question. The first thing I would say is, as mayor, I wouldn't have sat on the sidelines. I would have immediately, as soon as those rezonings or development proposals came up for discussion. I would have jumped in and gone to work with the residents of those communities to make sure that revitalization wasn't something that happened to those residents, but happened with and for them.

Look, this is something, like so many other things in this race Brian, talk is cheap. Don't take my word for it. Look at my record over decades. When I announced that I was running last week, I began with a invocation from Reverend Johnny Ray Youngblood, legendary pastor in Brooklyn. Who I started working with over two decades ago to build the Nehemiah plan that created over 5,000 homes for Black and brown New Yorkers in Brownsville, East New York, the South Bronx.

Anna Vincenty also was part of the announcement. She was one of the leaders of Nos Vamos, an early group that made sure when the South Bronx was rebuilt, it was rebuilt with and for the residents. I have a long record of not parachuting in at the last minute as so often happens with these proposals. Really working with communities to make sure it's their vision. I believe that if we do that, we actually can create new visions for development in communities that really do create jobs that go to those who need them most.

It's one of the reasons why I said in my announcement speech, I would be the first mayor ever to create a Chief Equity Officer reporting directly to the mayor. Every issue is an equity issue in this city, and that includes every time we think about bringing jobs, we have to make sure that those jobs are going to the folks that need them most.

Brian: Let me, ask you one followup on that. Let's say in the case of Amazon because that's the big iconic one. If the jobs they were going to be creating were by and large tech jobs that required engineering degrees and things like that. The neighborhood wasn't going to have such a concentration of people who could fill those, what were promised to be 25,000 jobs, a lot of those would be tech jobs. Therefore people who are not already living in the neighborhood, who would come to the neighborhood and would be making a lot more money than the people currently in the neighborhood that would push up the rents and the housing values. How could you avoid that?

Shaun: Two answers to that question, Brian, that I think are so important. Let me just be very specific. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Long Island City meeting with Bishop Taylor and leaders from public housing there. They actually believed that with the right kind of partnership with the mayor, Amazon could have brought jobs for public housing residents. Let's be clear. It isn't that every single job that comes with an Amazon or an Industry City is a job that requires extensive tech background. There are all kinds of other jobs directly for other professions. There are also spin-offs [crosstalk]

Brian: I'm asking about the pressure on market rents.

Shaun: This is a question of jobs as well as affordability. First of all, when we do development, we have to make sure that there's real affordable housing that comes out of it with mandatory inclusionary zoning and a whole range of other tools. Brian, I think at a time of depression level unemployment in this city, we need to be bringing jobs that are available to everyone. That is why you see folks like Bishop Taylor and others in local communities that are open to these projects if they bring partnerships with residents of public housing and others. Who can take the jobs immediately that are available because not all of them demand very high skills.

This is also why Brian, we have to make sure that the next mayor, everything from middle school and high school through CUNY-- CUNY is one of the jewels of the public education system in this country. It's why I suggested in my announcement speech that we create a New York City Job Corp, the largest apprenticeship program in the country. To make sure that we're building the bridges into those jobs of the future for New York City residents, particularly those who have been left behind so often.

It's also why I pledged to create a corporate equity commitment in my first 100 days to bring together the 100 CEOs of the biggest companies in New York and make sure that they're committing to hire New Yorkers. If we can really build those kinds of community partnerships, we can make sure that the next time an Amazon or Industry City comes along, that that is something that really does benefit the community. But it takes the right leadership from City Hall.

Brian: We have to take a short break, we'll continue with New York City mayoral hopeful Shaun Donovan. When we come back, you mentioned education. We're going to go on to something that's in the news right now, that one of our questioners on Twitter says is going to be a defining issue for a lot of New York City parents. That is Mayor De Blasio's announcement last week that they will end all academic screens for New York City, middle schools, as well as ending a priority for people in the neighborhood for New York City high schools. Pick up right there and listeners we'll get to some of your phone calls for Shaun Donovan, right after this.

[music]

Brian Lehrer on WYNC with Shaun Donovan, who used to be President Obama's Housing and Urban Development Secretary. He was also an OMB office of management and budget director for a while under President Obama. He was Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner under Mayor Bloomberg for much of the Bloomberg administration. Shaun Donovan is now in the field of, I lose count of how many Democrats running for mayor of New York City for next year.

Listeners, as I said before, when we've had some of the other candidates on this is going to come up quicker than you think. I know you're exhausted from the presidential election. Maybe you're thinking about the Georgia Senate runoffs, but June of next year, so it's just six months away, is going to be the New York primary. That's earlier than primary's used to be. Like I say, it's going to come up pretty quick and with so many candidates, we're having them on already. Shaun Donovan with his interesting and relevant background here today.

Secretary Donovan I said, we were going to turn to education. The news that mayor De Blasio just suspended all academic screening for admissions to middle schools. He barred high schools from giving preference to kids who live nearby. These are considered pro desegregation, pro-integration measures. We're getting tweets on this, even before I brought it up for you. A listener writes, "What policies will Donovan support that will desegregate our highly segregated city schools? Does he support reparations? Will he worked with the DOE chancellor?"

This says, "Everyone always talks about school segregation. There is actually a residential segregation problem." They want to know if you go beyond that to the schools, per se. Someone else tweets under the name, A Furious New York City Parent, and that person tweets, "Where does Mr. Donovan stand on the changes implemented this week by De Blasio and Carranza to the middle school and high school admissions process. This will be a decisive issue for many New York City parents in the upcoming election."

There are probably a lot of parents on the other side of that first tweet who are like, "What do you mean I can't get my child into a gifted and talented middle school." Do you have a position on this and integration in general?

Shaun: Absolutely, Brian. Let me just step back and say, I am running the campaign of ideas. In my announcement speech, I laid out a detailed set of proposals for the city on equity, including the Chief Equity Officer. We launched our climate plan two weeks ago, last week, our transportation plan. We're going to be releasing a detailed education plan. You'll see that I'm going to have more detailed and more comprehensive and visionary plans than any other candidate in this race on all of these issues.

I look forward to releasing my education plan, which is going to go further than the steps that were announced this week. I do think there are important steps here. I was already calling for getting rid of the gifted and talented screening and middle school. I do think that we have to take additional steps. Look, we have some encouraging early results in Park Slope, in other parts of the city where we've seen progress towards integration in the schools. We now need a mayor, who's going to take those early steps and create a citywide proposal that goes beyond just the screening that was announced this week. All of those are important.

I would say, Brian, we also have to recognize that segregation begins in our neighborhoods. It's one of the reasons I started working in housing more than 30 years ago. It's why I took the lead under President Obama to give real meaning to the Fair Housing Act of 1968. I don't know how many of your listeners are still following Donald Trump's tweets. I remember that he was attacking Joe Biden for "destroying the suburbs" because he wanted to make sure Black and brown people could choose where to live.

That was my work that Donald Trump was attacking. Because I really led the effort on something called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing. That demanded every single community in the country ensure that every dollar of federal money they spent went toward creating more diverse, integrated, equitable neighborhoods. I believe we have to do both. We have to take important steps in our education system, but we also need to be much more deliberate and aggressive in how we think about planning our communities. So that we're asking every community to be part of the solution.

Brian: Barbara and Bay Ridge, you are on WNYC with Shaun Donovan. Hi Barbara.

Barbara: Hi. I'd like to ask what Secretary Donovan plans to do about public housing, which has been a disgrace, it's been mismanaged for decades. Every mayor comes in and says, they're going to do something about it and it gets worse and worse. I know money is part of the issue, but mismanagement has also a big part of the issue. What are you going to do, Secretary Donovan?

Shaun: Barbara, you're exactly right, it is the two Ms, this is money and mismanagement. On the money front, look, this is true in public housing, it's true in every other area. I worked side-by-side with Joe Biden and with Kamala Harris, actually, to try to make sure that people stayed in their homes in the midst of the foreclosure crisis when she was attorney general.

There is no one in this race who's in a better position to work with the incoming Biden-Harris Administration, to work with leaders in Congress, to make sure that we get the resources that we need for public housing. That's tens of billions of dollars that we need to make sure that we take care of public housing.

Think about the fact that 1 in 14 New Yorkers live in public housing. It's more people than live in Atlanta, Georgia. It has to be a top issue for the next mayor. It would be for me. On the management side, understand that it is one thing to focus on ideology and rhetoric. I'm a public servant, I am not a politician, and I have been focused on managing the public sector for decades. I am somebody who really brings the experience, whether it's managing a $4 trillion federal budget, whether it's leading the revitalization of public housing in cities across this country.

What we need is a partner at city hall who really stops treating NYCHA like a plant political football and treats it like it is a centerpiece of our housing. It really is the most important for permanently affordable housing resource we have in this city, and we need a mayor who's going to put it at the center of his plans, and finally make it part of the city's affordable housing plan. It never has been, even under de Blasio, it was not part of the city's affordable housing plan. I would do that on day one.

Brian: Are you for or against two of the ideas that are out there now. Replacing much of NYCHA's current rent formula with vouchers and building private housing on NYCHA ground to help generate an income stream to help those developments? I think a lot of experts are for both of those things, but a lot of public housing residents think it would make things even worse.

Shaun: Brian, I have been working with public housing residents over the last few years, bringing them together with experts on public housing from around the country. I think there's an increasing number of public housing residents who understand that the only way we're going to get the tens of billions of dollars we need to make sure NYCHA housing is decent housing, that it's safe and healthy housing. The only way we're going to do that, given the budget constraints we have in Washington, is to use Section 8 resources.

That doesn't mean vouchers necessarily, there are different forms of Section 8, but we have to access more Section 8 resources to get the money that we need to fix up public housing in the city. It's the only way we're going to get the resources we need. Yes, I am supportive of that, but in a way that absolutely preserves every right that residents have to permanently affordable housing to stay in their homes.

On your point about development, I do think that, again, working closely with residents, we can bring new housing to NYCHA campuses in a way that benefits residents. Partly through the money it will bring to fix up the housing. Also, think about this, think about all the seniors we have living in public housing who raise their kids. They're now in a two, or a three, or four-bedroom apartment and need services as they age.

What if we develop more senior housing within NYCHA developments. That would allow them to move into much more appropriate housing for them with the services and free up a three or a four-bedroom apartment for a family that's been waiting on the waiting list for a decade or more. Those are the kinds of innovative partnerships that we need. Again, as I said earlier, I have a history over more than 25 years of working with resident-led planning efforts.

I believe as mayor, I could do exactly the same thing with public housing residents as I've been doing in partnerships these last few years to help them understand great innovative models from around the country. One of the things I did when I announced is I was supported by Mayors for Donovan. I'm the only candidate in this race that's worked with mayors across this country and really seen the innovative kind of things that we could learn from in New York.

As I said in my announcement speech, an old twist on a saying, "If they can do it anywhere, we can do it here, only better." I really believe I'm a mayor who can bring those innovative ideas to this city and make us the leading city in the world again on public housing and so many other issues.

Brian: We'll take one more call. Megan in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hello, Megan.

Megan: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I have a question about the MTA. There was a conviction on five former MTA workers. Their overtime fraud alone accounted for about $500,000 in just one year. These are outrageous examples of overtime fraud within the company, and over time in the MTA just seems like it's rising over the past few years, every year it just keeps doubling. It seems like there's an ongoing issue. They seem to be constantly in debt, and now the government is going to give them $3 billion. I have two questions. One, what is your plan with reforming the MTA in dealing with their budget, and who manages the MTA?

Shaun: Megan, such an important question. I am a daily subway rider, actually rode with my family up to the South Bronx for my announcement a couple of Tuesdays ago. I've seen the mismanagement very directly. One of the things that really separates me from everybody else in this race is I've managed a $4 trillion federal budget. We actually reduced the federal budget deficit faster than any time since World War II while still making big investments in the Affordable Care Act, on healthcare, on housing and homelessness, on jobs.

I have a record of being able to lead through crisis, and particularly on budgetary issues that nobody else in this race does. Absolutely, we need a mayor who can also work with Governor Cuomo to get this done. While I have some proposals in my transportation plan that we released last week, that would give New York City more say in how the MTA is functioning so that it works better for New York City. We're going to need a mayor who can sit down at the table with Andrew Cuomo and get things done.

I worked with Andrew Cuomo at HUD in the Clinton Administration. When I led the federal recovery efforts after Sandy, I worked hand-in-hand with him very effectively to make sure that New Yorkers got the resources they needed to rebuild better. I have the record both on working with the Governor and on effective management in government, that I believe that we could make the subway system, and MTA more broadly, work for New Yorkers.

I would also say, and this was a key part of my transportation plan last week. You said you lived in Manhattan. I was born in Manhattan. There are many folks in New York who live in neighborhoods where they have everything that they need within 15 minutes. What I want to do is make sure that every New Yorker lives in a 15-minute neighborhood and has rapid transportation to jobs accessible to them. They should also have a great school, they should have fresh food, they should have good healthcare. They should have everything they need within 15 minutes.

That's going to take a mayor who will really focus on expanding transportation options in Black and brown communities that are too often left behind. I'm a big supporter of bus rapid transit and would bring real bus rapid transit, not just to 14th Street but to neighborhoods across this city, and expanding a whole range of options. I would encourage you to go to shaunfornyc.com, look at my transportation plan that we released last week. Really understand the depth of what we're proposing to make transportation work for every New Yorker. I called it the central nervous system of the city, and it absolutely is.

Brian: Last question. We're going to give this very important issue short shrift for today. Because of your background in housing, we focused on that primarily, but crime and the police. You were a top commissioner for Mayor Bloomberg. His policing policy has been discredited because of the massive stop-and-frisk program which contributed to mass incarceration. As you know, when Bloomberg himself was running for president last year, he apologized for that program.

Did you ever speak up to Mayor Bloomberg about stop-and-frisk when you were in his administration for housing. What would your approach be to bringing down the number of shootings plaguing the city this year but also reforming and reducing-- I assume you say, because everybody is saying reducing the presence of the NYPD in some way.

Shaun: Brian, we do need to reduce what we're asking police to do. They shouldn't be patrolling the hallways of our schools, they shouldn't be criminalizing homelessness, and we should have mental health professionals that are focused on that. I was even up looking at an open street in the Allerton neighborhood in the Bronx the other day. Found out that 75% of our open streets that we've created during COVID are the responsibility of the police to oversee. When we know that community organizations actually do a better job of programming them, overseeing them, making sure they really work for families in those neighborhoods.

I do think we do need to reduce what we're asking of the police. We also need to reimagine their role, and to reinvest in community-oriented solutions that break the cycle of incarceration. Really think of crime and violence as the public health issue that it is. Again, I'm interested in results, not rhetoric and I have a record on these issues. When I was in the Obama administration, I was part of the 21st Century Policing Task Force. I worked with mayor's all around the country who were able to make the kind of fundamental changes in the culture of policing.

I led the effort at OMB to demilitarize police forces by taking away military equipment that they were getting for free from the federal government. I've been deeply involved in these issues and I've seen that you can actually create safe streets. Also a deep respect for the communities, the Black and brown communities in particular, that are so often the victims of violence from the police. Those kind of partnerships are what allowed us under President Obama to bring the crime rate down and the incarceration rate together. It's the first time that's happened in 50 years.

I also will say, Brian, just from my very direct experience, when I was Housing Commissioner in the city. We took some of our Section 8 vouchers gave them to folks coming out of Rikers. I got a lot of complaints about that folks said, "Oh, why are you giving these two criminals? There are other people on the waiting list."

The results were dramatic, Brian. We saw after a year 95% of those folks coming out of Rikers were stably housed, they were getting back to work, they hadn't committed another crime. I know firsthand that if we can reinvest in community-oriented solutions, that we absolutely can break this cycle of incarceration and reduce violence in our city and that's what I'm focusing on. Not only reducing, but reimagining and reinvesting as well.

Brian: Shaun Donovan now running for mayor of the city of New York. As I say to all the candidates when they come on, good luck out there on the trail, and we will have you back and 2021 as this develops. Thank you very much.

Shaun: Thank you, Brian. It's wonderful to be with you again and look forward to talking to you in 2021.

Copyright © 2020 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.