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      Eric Adams Has Plans for New York, Beyond Public Safety

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      Mr. Adams, the Democratic mayoral nominee, has stances on policing, transportation and education that suggest a shift from Mayor Bill de Blasio.In the afterglow of winning the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City, Eric Adams began to set out his mission if elected in November.“Safety, safety, safety,” Mr. Adams said in one interview. “Making our city safe,” he said in another.On Thursday, as a torrential storm flooded the city’s subway stations, Mr. Adams offered another priority: Fast-track the city’s congestion pricing plan, which would charge fees to motorists entering Manhattan’s core, so that the money could be used to make critical improvements to the aging system.The two initiatives encapsulate Mr. Adams’s self-characterization as a blue-collar candidate: Make the streets and the subway safe and reliable for New York’s working-class residents.But they also hint at the challenges that await the city’s next mayor.To increase public safety, Mr. Adams has said he would bring back a contentious plainclothes anti-crime unit that focused on getting guns off the streets. The unit was effective, but it was disbanded last year amid criticism of its reputation for using excessive force, and for its negative impact on the relationship between police officers and the communities they serve.Congestion pricing was opposed by some state lawmakers, who wanted to protect the interests of constituents who needed to drive into Manhattan. But even though state officials approved the plan two years ago, it has yet to be introduced: A key review board that would guide the tolling structure has yet to be named; its six members are to be appointed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is controlled by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.Mr. Adams, who would be the city’s second Black mayor, would face other steep challenges: steering the city out of the pandemic; navigating the possibility of a new City Council trying to push him to the left; grappling with significant budget deficits once federal recovery aid is spent.How he intends to accomplish it all is still somewhat theoretical, but he has offered a few concrete proposals — some costly, and with no set ways to pay for them — mixed in with broader ideas.Some of New York City’s mayoral transitions have reflected wild swings from one ideology to another. The current mayor, Bill de Blasio, ran on a promise to end the city’s vast inequities, which he said had worsened under his billionaire predecessor, Michael R. Bloomberg. The gentle and consensus-building David N. Dinkins was succeeded by Rudolph W. Giuliani, a hard-charging former federal prosecutor.Privately, Mr. de Blasio supported Mr. Adams in the competitive primary, believing that he was the person best suited to carry on Mr. de Blasio’s progressive legacy, and if Mr. Adams defeats the Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa, an abrupt change in the city’s direction is unlikely.But in some ways, Mr. Adams has staked out positions on issues like affordable housing, transportation and education that suggest a shift from Mr. de Blasio’s approach.On policing, Mr. Adams, who has pledged to name the city’s first female police commissioner, has already spoken to three potential candidates, and is believed to favor Juanita Holmes, a top official who was lured out of retirement by the current police commissioner, Dermot F. Shea. Mr. Adams has also vowed to work with federal officials to crack down on the flow of handguns into the city, and he has expressed concerns about how bail reform laws, approved by state lawmakers in 2019, may be contributing to a recent rise in violent crime.On education, Mr. Adams is viewed as friendly toward charter schools and he does not want to get rid of the specialized admissions test that has kept many Black and Latino students out of the city’s elite high schools, a departure from Mr. de Blasio’s stance. He has also proposed opening schools year-round and expanding the universal prekindergarten program by offering reduced-cost child care for children under 3.Transportation and safety advocates hope that Mr. Adams, an avid cyclist, will have a more intuitive understanding of their calls for better infrastructure. He has promised to build 150 new miles of bus lanes and busways in his first term, and 300 new miles of protected bike lanes, a significant expansion of Mr. de Blasio’s efforts.Increasing the supply of affordable housing was a central goal of Mr. de Blasio’s administration, and Mr. Adams supports the mayor’s highly debated plan to rezone Manhattan’s trendy SoHo neighborhood to allow for hundreds of affordable units.Mr. Adams has said he supports selling the air rights to New York City Housing Authority properties to help finance improvements to authority buildings.  Hilary Swift for The New York TimesMr. Adams also supports a proposal to convert hotels and some of the city’s own office buildings to affordable housing units. The proposal originated with real estate industry leaders, who have watched their office buildings empty out during the pandemic.Mr. Adams favors selling the air rights above New York City Housing Authority properties to developers, an idea the de Blasio administration floated in 2018. Mr. Adams has said the sales might yield $8 billion, which the authority could use to pay for improvements at the more than 315 buildings it manages.Mr. Adams is viewed as pro-development — he supported a deal for an Amazon headquarters in Queens and a rezoning of Industry City in Brooklyn, both abandoned after criticism from progressive activists — and he was supported in the primary by real estate executives and wealthy donors.During his campaign, Mr. Adams met three times with the Partnership for New York City, a Wall Street-backed business nonprofit, according to Kathryn Wylde, the group’s president. Ms. Wylde expressed appreciation for Mr. Adams’s focus on public safety — a matter of great importance to her members — and confidence that he would be more of a check on the City Council, which she said was constantly interfering with business operations.“I think with Adams, we’ll have a shot that he will provide some discipline,” Ms. Wylde said. “Why? Because he’s not afraid of the political left.”Some of Mr. Adams’s stances have drawn criticism from progressive leaders like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed Maya Wiley in the Democratic primary.Alyssa Aguilera, an executive director of VOCAL-NY Action Fund, said that “having a former N.Y.P.D. captain in Gracie Mansion” only means “further protections and funding for failed law enforcement tactics.”“With that framework, it’s hard to believe he’s going to make any substantial changes to the size and scope of the N.Y.P.D. and that’s what many of us are hoping for,” Ms. Aguilera said.Mr. Adams, a former police officer, has expressed confidence that, under him, the Police Department could use stop-and-frisk tactics without violating people’s rights. Dakota Santiago for The New York TimesMr. Adams insists that even though he has been characterized as a centrist, he views himself as a true progressive who can meld left-leaning concepts with practical policies.To address poverty, for example, Mr. Adams has proposed $3,000 tax credits for poor families — an idea he said was superior to his primary rival Andrew Yang’s local version of universal basic income.“There’s a permanent group of people that are living in systemic poverty,” Mr. Adams said recently on “CBS This Morning.” “You and I, we go to the restaurant, we eat well, we take our Uber, but that’s not the reality for America and New York. And so when we turn this city around, we’re going to end those inequalities.”To deal with the homelessness crisis, Mr. Adams has proposed integrating housing assistance into hospital stays for indigent and homeless people, and increasing the number of facilities for mentally ill homeless people, especially those who are not sick enough to stay in a hospital but are too unwell for a shelter.Mr. Adams did not emphasize climate change or environmental issues on the campaign trail. But in his Twitter post about the subway flooding on Thursday, he called for using congestion pricing funds to “add green infrastructure to absorb flash storm runoff.”His campaign has pointed to initiatives from his tenure as borough president: helping to expand the Brooklyn Greenway, a coastal bike and walking corridor, not only for recreation but for flood mitigation; and improving accountability for the post-Hurricane Sandy reconstruction process. Those actions are dwarfed by the sweeping change he will be called on to oversee as mayor — particularly by a City Council with many new members who campaigned on a commitment to mitigate and prepare for the effects of rising seas and extreme weather on a port city with a 520-mile coastline.Mr. Adams expresses confidence that he can reinstate the plainclothes police squad and use stop-and-frisk tactics without violating people’s rights, contending that his administration can effectively monitor data related to police interactions in real time, and intervene if there are abuses.“We are not going back to the days where you are going to stop, frisk, search and abuse every person based on their ethnicity and based on the demographics or based on the communities they’re in,” Mr. Adams said on MSNBC last week. “You can have precision policing without heavy-handed abusive policing.”When some subway stations flooded on Thursday, Mr. Adams called for using money raised through a congestion pricing plan to make the system more resilient against bad storms. Fiona Dhrimaj, via ReutersMr. Adams seems most likely to differ from Mr. de Blasio on matters of tone and governing style.He is known for working round-the-clock, while Mr. de Blasio has been pilloried for arriving late to work and appearing apathetic about his job. Mr. de Blasio is a Red Sox fan who grew up in the Boston area and lives in brownstone Brooklyn; Mr. Adams, a lifelong New Yorker, was raised in Jamaica, Queens, by a single mother who cleaned homes. He roots for the Mets. Mr. Adams will come into office in a powerful position because of the diverse coalition he assembled of Black, Latino and white voters outside Manhattan.“De Blasio spoke about those communities; Eric speaks to the communities,” said Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban planning at New York University. “There’s a real difference. De Blasio was talented as a campaigner. Eric is going to be a doer.”Where Mr. de Blasio rode into City Hall as a critic of the police and a proponent of reform, he will end his term buried in criticism that he ultimately pandered to the department — a shift that many attribute to a moment, early in his tenure, when members of the Police Department turned their backs on him at an officer’s funeral.Officers were upset that Mr. de Blasio spoke about talking to his biracial son about how to safely interact with the police, a conversation that the parents of most Black children have. As mayor, Mr. Adams said he would gather with officers around the city for a different version of “the conversation.”“I’m your mayor,” Mr. Adams said he would tell officers. “What you feel in those cruisers, I felt. I’ve been there. But let me tell you something else. I also know how it feels to be arrested and lying on the floor of the precinct and have someone kick you in your groin over and over again and urinate blood for a week.”Mr. Adams will most likely be different from Mr. de Blasio in another way: He mischievously told reporters last week that he would be fun to cover. Indeed, he was photographed on Wednesday getting an ear pierced; the next day, he was seen dining at Rao’s, an exclusive Italian restaurant in Harlem, with the billionaire Republican John Catsimatidis.“He got his ear pierced and went to Rao’s,” Mr. Moss said. “He’s going to enjoy being a public personality.”Reporting was contributed by Anne Barnard, Matthew Haag, Winnie Hu, Andy Newman and Ali Watkins. More

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      Candidates Clash Over New York City’s Future in Final Mayoral Debate

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      The eight contenders jousted over their policies on public safety, homelessness, education and mental illness with less than a week left in the campaign.Clashing over public safety, education and crises of mental health and street homelessness in New York City, the leading Democratic candidates for mayor on Wednesday promoted radically different post-pandemic visions for the city as they made their closing arguments before the June 22 primary.It was the Democrats’ final major debate of the primary, and, like the first three, the event was a contentious affair that focused heavily on issues of policing and public safety, as well as on questions of the candidates’ personal and professional preparedness to lead the nation’s largest city.Much of the fire at the previous matchups was trained at Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, and to some extent at Andrew Yang, a 2020 presidential candidate.Similar dynamics played out again on Wednesday, though the two-hour debate was one of the most substantive of the primary season, spanning issues from how the city can combat climate change to the best ways to manage affordable housing and homelessness.Indeed, the eight candidates constantly jostled for advantages, trying to position themselves as the most qualified to lead the city as it begins to recover from the ravages of the coronavirus and its effects on the economy, education, crime rates and inequality.Recent polls indicate that Mr. Adams is the front-runner, with Kathryn Garcia, a former city sanitation commissioner, and Maya D. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, showing late momentum. But Mr. Adams took on the fiercest attacks, as Mr. Yang and Ms. Wiley sought to put him on the defensive over matters of both judgment and policy, in particular around public safety.Mr. Yang, who led the early public polls, has been among Mr. Adams’s sharpest critics and is airing television ads attacking him. He began the race as a celebrity candidate whose sunny optimism and pledges to be New York’s cheerleader appeared to resonate with a city on the cusp of reopening.Eric Adams, left, a front-runner in the race, was the focus of several attacks from his rivals, including Andrew Yang, right.WNBC-TV and NYC Campaign Finance BoardBut as issues of public safety moved to the forefront of voters’ minds, and Mr. Yang faced scrutiny over his grasp of municipal government, he has stumbled in the sparse public polling available.At the debate, co-sponsored by WNBC-TV, he took aim at Mr. Adams’s public safety credentials, where polling suggests the borough president has a strong advantage. Mr. Yang was endorsed by the Captains Endowment Association, the union that represents police captains, as well as a major firefighters’ union, and on Wednesday he sought to undermine Mr. Adams on that subject.“They think I’m a better choice than Eric to keep us and our families safe,” Mr. Yang said. “They want someone honest as a partner who will actually follow through.”Mr. Adams, a former police captain, declared that some of the captains recalled his efforts to change police conduct from within the system while he was serving, and suggested they held it against him. When the candidates were asked to name the worst idea promoted by a rival, Mr. Yang cited Mr. Adams’s past remarks about carrying a gun in church, while Mr. Adams ripped Mr. Yang’s cash relief proposal for the poorest 500,000 New Yorkers, likening it to “Monopoly money” and suggesting it was less serious than his own proposals.Ms. Wiley has also frequently clashed with Mr. Adams on the debate stage, but unlike Mr. Yang, she has often challenged him from the left over issues of policing, and she did so again on Wednesday.“The worst idea I’ve ever heard is bringing back stop and frisk and the anti-crime unit from Eric Adams,” Ms. Wiley said. “Which, one, is racist, two, is unconstitutional, and three, didn’t stop any crime, and four, it will not happen in a Maya Wiley administration.”Maya Wiley sought to contrast her stance on public safety with Mr. Adams, criticizing his idea to bring back an anti-crime unit.WNBC-TV and NYC Campaign Finance BoardMr. Adams vowed that the abuse of stop and frisk would not return in an Adams administration and questioned Ms. Wiley’s authority on the subject, noting reports of private security in her neighborhood.Mr. Adams has come under growing scrutiny in recent weeks over matters from his fund-raising practices to questions about his residency, and his opponents have sought to cast doubt on his commitments to transparency and ethical leadership. On Wednesday, the nonprofit news outlet The City reported on issues of disclosure around Mr. Adams’s real estate holdings.But those issues were not a central focus of the debate on Wednesday, and with early voting already underway, it was not clear how much the barbs aimed at Mr. Adams would affect his standing.As in previous debates, questions of public safety were among the most divisive of the night. Ms. Garcia and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citi executive, blasted the “defund the police” movement, while Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, challenged Mr. McGuire over how that slogan is received among voters of color.“For Black and brown communities, neither defund the police nor stop and frisk,” Mr. McGuire said.“How dare you assume to speak for Black and Brown communities as a monolith,” Ms. Morales, who identifies as Afro-Latina, said. “You cannot do that.”“I just did,” Mr. McGuire, one of the highest-ranking and longest-serving Black executives on Wall Street, shot back. “I’m going to do it again.”Issues of housing and mental illness also illuminated key contrasts among the candidates.Mr. Yang struck a note of outrage as he declared that “mentally ill homeless men are changing the character of our neighborhoods.”After some of his rivals sketched out affordable housing plans, Mr. Yang said he was “frustrated by the political nature of these responses.”“We’re not talking about housing affordability, we’re talking about the hundreds of mentally ill people we all see around us every day on the streets, in the subways,” he said. “We need to get them off of our streets and our subways, into a better environment.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“That is the greatest non-answer I’ve ever heard,” said Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, who had spoken of the need to build tens of thousands of units of “truly affordable housing,” as he pressed Mr. Yang on the costs of such a proposal. “This is a teaching moment.”Mr. Yang later returned to the subject, arguing vigorously that people with untreated mental illness should not be on the streets. He noted that people of Asian descent have increasingly been the targets of attacks that have often been linked to people struggling with mental illness.“Yes, mentally ill people have rights, but you know who else has rights? We do: the people and families of the city,” Mr. Yang said. He proposed doubling the inventory of inpatient psychiatric beds in the city.Others took a starkly different tone, as candidates including Ms. Wiley argued for more outreach by “the right people,” instead of the police, and Ms. Morales warned against treating people with mental illness as criminals.The final debate arrived at a moment of significant uncertainty in the mayoral campaign.Ranked-choice voting, in which voters can rank up to five candidates in order of preference, has injected an extraordinary degree of unpredictability into the race. One recent poll found Mr. Adams garnering the most first-place votes, but ultimately finishing second to Ms. Garcia; others have shown him ahead, but surveys have been sparse.It is also unclear what a post-pandemic electorate in a June primary will look like, and some candidates could still cross-endorse each other in the final stretch, which could further scramble the contest.Throughout the debate, battle lines emerged between candidates who are casting themselves as proud political outsiders — a message Mr. McGuire hit repeatedly — and those, like Ms. Garcia and Mr. Stringer, who emphasize government experience at every turn.Some of the more substantive moments of the evening also unfolded around the best ways to account for educational losses during the pandemic, and many of the candidates argued that school quality and better integration go hand-in-hand.Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, said she would attack climate change as a legacy-making initiative.WNBC-TV and NYC Campaign Finance BoardMs. Garcia described plans for creating new high schools, promised to “stop screening 4-year-olds with a test — that’s insane,” and said she would ensure schools have robust art, music, theater and sports programs.Ms. Wiley promised to hire 2,500 teachers to reduce overcrowding in classrooms, while Mr. Stringer promoted the idea of placing two teachers in every classroom, kindergarten through fifth grade. Others reached for their own experiences — Mr. Yang as a public school parent, for example, or Ms. Morales as a former educator — to take on the issue.“This is a false choice,” Shaun Donovan, a former federal housing secretary, said, when asked whether he would prioritize desegregation or improving school quality. “After a year that’s hurt every one of our students and widened the inequalities that we see in our schools, we need to get our schools open safely and quickly, but we also have to make sure that everyone is recovering, particularly those who are furthest behind.”Kristen Bayrakdarian More

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      New York Has a Housing Crisis. How Would the Mayoral Candidates Fix It?

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      New York City’s affordability problems were laid bare by the pandemic. Mayoral candidates offer solutions, but steep political and logistical obstacles remain.New York City’s leaders have been vexed for decades by a problem that has helped turn the city into a worldwide symbol of inequality: As years of prosperity gave rise to soaring luxury apartment towers, public housing crumbled and affordable neighborhoods vanished.The current mayor, Bill de Blasio, had made addressing the city’s housing crisis an imperative during his tenure. But now, the Democratic candidates vying to succeed him next year are confronting a crisis that may be even more severe as a result of the pandemic.All the leading candidates agree that housing is a top issue with huge implications for New York’s future, and each has offered a sweeping plan to tackle the problem. While their proposals overlap in many ways — every contender wants to spend more on public housing, for example — the candidates differ in the solutions and strategies they emphasize most.Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, have made the creation of tens of thousands of new homes for the poorest New Yorkers a top objective. Maya Wiley, a civil rights lawyer and former counsel to Mr. de Blasio, and Shaun Donovan, a former housing secretary under President Barack Obama and a onetime city housing commissioner, say they would steer hundreds of millions of dollars to struggling renters to help keep them in their homes.Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, is taking aim at private developers by calling for a hefty increase in the number of affordable units the city requires in big new residential buildings. Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, wants wealthy neighborhoods to make way for more affordable units. Andrew Yang, a former presidential candidate, and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, have keyed in on converting hotels to housing.Many of the plans face steep political and financial hurdles. But experts and housing advocates say that a failure by the next mayor to address the crisis in a meaningful way could jeopardize New York’s cultural fabric and stunt its economic comeback by making the city even more unaffordable for low-wage workers and residents of color.“If we want to see New York City actually recover, start with housing,” said Annetta Seecharran, the executive director of the Chhaya Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit group based in Jackson Heights, Queens, that advocates the creation of affordable housing. “If we don’t do housing, we’ll be spinning our wheels for decades.”By several measures, the situation is dire. Even before the pandemic, about half of the city’s households spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent, according to an analysis by New York University’s Furman Center. The New York City Housing Authority — the largest public housing entity in the United States, with more than 400,000 tenants — estimates that it needs $40 billion to fix leaky roofs, dilapidated heating systems and other problems.The pandemic has added a troubling layer of uncertainty. Federal aid is on the way, and a moratorium on evictions is in place. But renters’ arrears have risen to hundreds of millions of dollars. Despite the moratorium, landlords have been allowed to file new cases that could lead to the eviction of tens of thousands of residents — particularly in Black and Latino neighborhoods — once the moratorium ends. A spike in homelessness could follow.The winner of the Democratic primary is almost certain to become the city’s next mayor. And while the leading candidates have indicated with their plans that they would build on Mr. de Blasio’s strategies, they have also criticized the mayor, implicitly and explicitly, for not providing enough financial support to the poorest New Yorkers.In a report released this year, the Community Service Society, an anti-poverty group, said Mr. de Blasio’s administration had significantly expanded investment in affordable housing. But most of the efforts, the group found, were directed toward those who earned at least $53,700 for a family of three, equivalent to half of the area’s median income — when the need was greatest among those who earned less.Ms. Garcia said that she would borrow and use state incentives and federal money to help build or preserve 50,000 rent-stabilized housing units that would be affordable to people making less than half the area’s median income, as well as 10,000 housing units that incorporated social services for homeless people. She did not offer a price for her plan, but the money would be used to build new apartments, buy existing buildings, or offer subsidies and incentives to nonprofit or private developers.Mr. McGuire said he would borrow $2.5 billion a year over eight years, which would help finance the construction of more than 350,000 housing units. Most of that money would be earmarked for subsidies and incentives for developers to include rent-stabilized units in mixed-income developments that are affordable to those making less than half the median income. He said he would spend up to $500 million to create about 3,000 affordable units for older people with little income.“It is a departure from what we have built for the past few years,” he said.Mr. Yang and Mr. Donovan said they would spend billions of dollars a year to build or preserve 30,000 units meant for families in a range of incomes.Ms. Wiley is focused on distributing more than $1.5 billion in subsidies to New Yorkers who make less than half the median income to ensure they do not pay more than 30 percent of their income in rent. Initially, she said, federal coronavirus aid would cover the subsidies.She said the program would help keep people from becoming homeless, freeing up money that would have gone to shelters to finance the subsidies instead.Mr. Donovan has proposed something similar, a rental-assistance program that he said could be paid for partly with $330 million that would otherwise be spent on shelters.“Although building allows you to provide affordable housing, solving the affordability crisis has more to do with income and rent subsidy than development,” he said.For many candidates, investing in the housing authority, or NYCHA, is crucial to helping the poorest New Yorkers. Ms. Wiley and Mr. Donovan said they would borrow and spend $2 billion a year in city money to improve public housing; Mr. McGuire and Mr. Stringer said they would borrow and spend up to $1.5 billion..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Adams said he planned to raise $8 billion for NYCHA by selling the so-called air rights for some of its properties to private developers, something the authority has already begun to explore.Ms. Garcia said she would push state officials for approval of a complex authority plan that could raise $18 billion to $25 billion, in part by letting a new public benefit corporation manage some buildings. Mr. Yang said he also supported the creation of the new corporation, which could potentially tap into federal funding.Some residents and activists have argued against the plan, asserting that it could open public housing to the influence of private investors at the expense of tenants.Ms. Morales said she would reject the plan, which she characterized as the “privatization of NYCHA,” and would seek state and federal aid instead.Several Democratic candidates said the rules governing development in the city should be overhauled.Mr. Stringer has proposed that every new development with more than 10 units permanently set aside 25 percent of those units for low-income tenants. The proposal would expand the requirements placed on private developers substantially. But the real estate lobby would most likely fight it aggressively, arguing that without significant subsidies from the government, such buildings could reduce profits and thus any incentive to build.“The big real estate developers hate this plan,” Mr. Stringer said. “For me, that’s a badge of honor.”Ms. Garcia, Mr. Yang, Mr. McGuire and Mr. Donovan have said they would move to rezone wealthier neighborhoods and those with more public transit options to accommodate additional affordable housing units. Such a strategy could touch off the kind of fierce local opposition that has torpedoed similar initiatives in the past. Mr. Adams said he would push for wide swaths of Midtown Manhattan, from 42nd Street to 14th Street and from Ninth Avenue to Park Avenue, to be rezoned for more affordable housing.“It is the job of the next mayor to break through the bureaucracy and cynicism to deliver the affordable housing needed to sustain our city,” Mr. Adams said.A core piece of Mr. Yang’s plan involves converting closed hotels and office buildings left unused because of the pandemic into 25,000 units of affordable housing by 2025, with building owners getting grants whose size is tied to how affordable the rents are.“The system is broken, and we need a new way of delivering affordable housing to New Yorkers,” he said.Mr. Adams and Ms. Wiley have also proposed converting hotels and unused offices, and Ms. Morales said she would specifically seek to convert the hotels into housing for 100,000 homeless youth and their families. She did not say how she would pay for it. More

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      Shaun Donovan Has the Résumé and the Money. He Just Needs the Votes.

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      Shaun Donovan Has the Résumé and the Money. He Just Needs the Votes.In running for mayor of New York, Mr. Donovan is arguing that his leadership experience offers what the city needs in a time of crisis.Mr. Donovan, who often says that he’s running a “campaign of ideas,” is more than halfway through releasing 70 ideas in 70 days.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThe New York City mayoral race is one of the most consequential political contests in a generation, with immense challenges awaiting the winner. This is the sixth in a series of profiles of the major candidates.May 31, 2021Five years ago, a powerful New York-based political strategist was rooting around for someone whom voters could envision as the city’s next mayor, someone with the right type of experience and gravitas to take on the weakened incumbent, Bill de Blasio.The strategist, Bradley Tusk, believed he had found his candidate: Shaun Donovan, a veteran of the Obama administration and a former city commissioner under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Mr. Tusk believed that Mr. Donovan’s credentials would be irresistible to voters, saying then that New Yorkers “want the competency of Bloomberg, but they want something that’s more progressive.”Mr. Donovan recently recalled that moment with some wistfulness. He remembered thinking how he had missed so much time with his two sons because of his work for President Barack Obama, first as housing secretary and then budget director. He decided then that running for mayor would have to wait.Mr. Tusk never found his candidate, and Mr. de Blasio went on to easily capture his second term.Things have since changed significantly. Mr. de Blasio is in his final year as mayor, and Mr. Donovan is one of 15 Democrats and Republicans seeking to replace him. Mr. Tusk’s firm now manages the campaign of Andrew Yang, one of the race’s front-runners.But Mr. Donovan, 55, has not been able to live up to Mr. Tusk’s initial ambition. He remains anchored among the second tier of mayoral contenders, despite the support from a super PAC — funded almost exclusively by his father — that has spent $5.5 million so far, much of it on ads trumpeting Mr. Donovan’s accomplishments.He has tried attacking the record of Mr. de Blasio, decrying what he saw as the mayor’s poor management of everything from city parks to the census and even the food supply, and drawing a contrast to his time in the Bloomberg administration with its aura of efficiency.Voters want change, Mr. Donovan says. “They’re sick of the political status quo in New York, but they also want experience,” he said after a news conference last month at Pelham Parkway Houses in the Bronx, where he criticized Mr. de Blasio’s management of public housing. “New Yorkers don’t want a rookie as mayor.”Yet many of Mr. Donovan’s news conferences, where he lays out detailed plans to end homelessness or address gun violence, are sparsely attended. His broadside attacks on other candidates are mostly ignored. Viewers of the first official televised mayoral debate talked more about the expansive HGTV-ready kitchen in Mr. Donovan’s background than about his proposals.Mr. Donovan entered the race confident that his track record of implementing his ideas about reducing inequality while working for the country’s first Black president would win voters, but instead he has faced criticism that his privileged background left him out of touch with middle-income New Yorkers. He has announced reams of technocratic plans that he considers among the most progressive in the race but has not secured support from the city’s progressive establishment.Mitchell L. Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University who advised Mr. Bloomberg during his first campaign for mayor in 2001, said that Mr. Donovan had not taken off because “New Yorkers aren’t electing a résumé, we’re electing a person.”Professor Moss effusively praised Mr. Donovan, saying he was one of the smartest people he knew, a common refrain. Mr. Donovan almost single-handedly put New York “back in the housing business” when he worked for Mr. Bloomberg, he added.“Donovan has everything on paper,” Professor Moss said. “He may be the right candidate at the wrong time.”A ‘look in the mirror moment’Mr. Donovan served as President Barack Obama’s housing secretary and budget director.Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesThe realization that he might run for mayor, Mr. Donovan said, came more than four years ago, on the final evening of the Obama administration.He was among roughly 30 of the administration’s longest-tenured officials who gathered on the Truman Balcony of the White House with the president and the first lady, Michelle Obama, reflecting on their past and worrying about the nation’s future with Donald J. Trump as president.“It was a look in the mirror moment,” Mr. Donovan said. “How could this have happened, and what are you going to do about it?”Mr. Donovan grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and attended the prestigious Dalton School. His parents divorced when he was 8 years old, a period that he recalled as difficult for him and his three siblings. He bounced between his parents’ apartments, and “there was lots of feeding ourselves,” Mr. Donovan said.“The profound thing for me was being surrounded by people who were wealthy and not happy and not making a difference in the world,” Mr. Donovan said, recalling how that sense was compounded after he graduated from Harvard University and a friend from Dalton committed suicide.By then, Mr. Donovan had begun interning for the National Coalition for the Homeless. Mr. Donovan said his father, Michael Donovan, who started a business that became one of the largest ad technology companies in the world, encouraged him to follow his heart in choosing a career, telling him that he could do anything “except come work for me.”Mr. Donovan, despite his credentials, has found it difficult to connect with voters, according to limited polling.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Donovan went on to earn master’s degrees in public administration and architecture from Harvard. When he was at graduate school in Harvard, Mr. Donovan learned about the Nehemiah Housing Project, which used a community planning model to build thousands of homes in the neglected Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville and East New York.Bishop Johnny Ray Youngblood, who was then with East Brooklyn Congregations, spearheaded the project. Mr. Donovan read about the effort and sought Bishop Youngblood out.“He was bright-eyed and bushy tailed,” said Bishop Youngblood, who recalled sending Mr. Donovan to California for training as a community organizer and saw his follow-through as proof that Mr. Donovan “was more serious than I thought he was.”Bishop Youngblood connected Mr. Donovan with the Community Preservation Corporation, an affordable housing developer in New York. Mr. Donovan eventually landed a job with the Clinton administration in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he designed a program that helped to preserve moderate- and low-income units across the country.In 2004, he became Mr. Bloomberg’s housing commissioner and worked to reduce homelessness by giving housing vouchers to people being released from Rikers Island. Homelessness declined while Mr. Donovan was in charge of housing.Housing advocates credit Mr. Donovan with fighting the earliest wave of private equity firms who were buying multifamily properties and forcing out rent-stabilized tenants; they said he effectively worked with tenant groups to identify at-risk buildings and preserve their affordability.In 2008, Mr. Donovan helped launch the Center for New York City Neighborhoods, which is dedicated to helping people avoid foreclosure and to promote homeownership, an idea that Mr. Donovan believes put him on Mr. Obama’s radar.In 2004, Mr. Donovan joined the mayoral administration of Michael Bloomberg, serving as his housing commissioner.Richard Perry/The New York TimesCraig Gurian of the Anti-Discrimination Center, a fair-housing group that is suing the city to end community preference in affordable housing lotteries, claiming it reinforces segregation, said Mr. Donovan missed opportunities as the city’s housing chief to address the problem. Later, when he joined the Obama administration, Mr. Donovan failed to vigorously enforce a similar suit against Westchester County, Mr. Gurian said.“He’s a very smart guy. He knows about housing and he’s had the power to do stuff, yet he didn’t,” Mr. Gurian said. “It just doesn’t jibe with his current persona in the mayoral race.”Mr. Donovan served as Mr. Obama’s budget director, led the response to Hurricane Sandy and was secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he helped reduce veteran homelessness by almost 40 percent and negotiated the $25 billion settlement with mortgage servicers after the foreclosure crisis.Eric H. Holder Jr., who served as United States attorney general under Mr. Obama, said Mr. Donovan had an “expansive view” of his positions in his quest to help Americans. “He’s a guy who hasn’t forgotten why he wanted to be involved in government,” Mr. Holder said in an interview.Mr. Donovan also created the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program, which allows private developers to renovate and manage public housing units. Tenants have worried that the program might lead to displacement, an idea Mr. Donovan rejects.Afua Atta-Mensah, executive director of Community Voices Heard Power, said that many residents found Mr. Donovan to be “smart, honest and open” when he defended the rental assistance program during a meeting with mayoral candidates but that he failed to see the gap between “doing a massive plan from D.C.” and “lived experience.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The group endorsed Maya Wiley, Mr. de Blasio’s former counsel, for mayor, and ranked Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, as its second choice.A perception of privilegeMr. Donovan is fond of saying that he’s running a “campaign of ideas” and is in the midst of unveiling 70 ideas in 70 days (Day 36: strengthening the regional food system; Day 42: fast-tracking felony gun cases).Mr. Donovan’s campaign news conferences have typically been sparsely attended.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesHis campaign mailed a 200-page book of ideas to the homes of journalists covering the race for mayor and to elected officials and other candidates. There are proposals for everything from how to alleviate public health disparities to how to fix the New York Jets, a parody plan he unveiled on April Fools’ Day. The more left-leaning of those ideas, he said, differentiated him from the more moderate candidates in the field.If elected, he has promised to provide poor children with bonds to eliminate the racial wealth gap; create 15-minute neighborhoods where a good school, fresh food, transit, a park and health care are within a short walk; remove the New York Police Department from city schools; and cut $3 billion from the police and corrections budget by the end of his first term and spend the money on underserved neighborhoods.Closing the racial wealth gap has been identified as one of the best ways to address systemic racial inequality in America. Under Mr. Donovan’s equity bonds proposal, every child born in New York City would receive an annual payment of $2,000, which would go into an account that would be accessible when they turn 18, and could have $50,000 waiting to pay for college or start a business when they turn 18. Mr. Donovan proposes using a combination of private, city and federal money to fund the costly effort.Cutting money from both the police and corrections budget shows a willingness to dive below the surface on a nuanced issue such as defund the police and look for creative solutions, Mr. Donovan said.On a recent visit to the Bronx that included a stop at the Futa Islamic Center for Friday evening prayer services, Mr. Donovan talked about the redevelopment of the South Bronx. The neighborhood was not far from Charlotte Street, the burned-out stretch of vacant lots and rubble near Boston Road visited by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. It is now filled with suburban style homes with lawns, a fabled tale of urban renewal.Mr. Donovan, at the Futa Islamic Center in the South Bronx, not far from where he held his official mayoral campaign launch.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesA few blocks in the opposite direction was Via Verde, a mixed-income 222-unit development dedicated to healthy living where Mr. Donovan formally announced his campaign. As Mr. Bloomberg’s housing commissioner, he helped bring the building into existence by launching an architectural design contest for affordable housing.Mr. Donovan recalled visiting the Bronx as an impressionable 11-year-old, watching from the Yankee Stadium stands as Reggie Jackson hit home runs in three consecutive at-bats to help the Yankees win the 1977 World Series. He went from being elated and hugging strangers to seeing burned-out buildings after leaving the game, he remembered.“People thought the American city was dying,” Mr. Donovan said. “And this was Exhibit A,” he added in reference to the South Bronx.Many political observers agree that Mr. Donovan has the credentials of a top mayoral candidate, but still has not been able to connect with voters.He is a native New Yorker but does not always sound like one. In an interview with The New York Times editorial board, he suggested that the median price for a home in Brooklyn was $100,000. The correct answer is actually nine times that amount; Mr. Donovan, who, with his wife, Liza Gilbert, paid $2.3 million in 2019 for their home in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, later said he had misunderstood the question.The mistake drew derision on social media, and fed the perception that Mr. Donovan was out of touch with the concerns of working-class New Yorkers in one of the most unequal cities in the country.That perception has also been fueled by the $6.8 million that his father, Michael Donovan, has contributed to New Start N.Y.C., a super PAC supporting his son’s campaign.Mr. Donovan said that several other candidates in the race have PACs and added that unlike some other donors, his father was not seeking anything in return for his contributions. “I don’t think New Yorkers are concerned that my dad’s intentions are to lobby me for more time with the grandchildren,” he said, while still acknowledging that his father’s support reinforced the notion that he had advantages that other candidates lacked.On the first anniversary of George Floyd’s death, Mr. Donovan was arrested with a small group of protesters at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel.Stephanie Keith for The New York TimesMr. Donovan, aware that his privilege had become a liability with some voters, has been trying to address that concern in the last weeks of the campaign.On the first anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, he was arrested with a small group of protesters who blocked the entrance to the Holland Tunnel in an act of civil disobedience. Mr. Donovan, wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt, talked about how he has not had to worry about his 19- and 21-year-old sons facing discriminatory policing.“I am grateful,” he said, “but I am also angry.”Jack Begg More

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      What’s the Next Mayor of New York’s One Big Idea?

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      We asked 10 candidates what they viewed as their central proposals. They named plans to offer cash relief to poor New Yorkers, child care grants and more.When Bill de Blasio ran for mayor of New York City in 2013, he was able to successfully distill his campaign into one big idea: creating universal prekindergarten. It reflected his larger theme of reducing inequality, and it was a promise he was able to deliver on not long after taking office.The large field of candidates running for mayor this year have plenty of ideas, from cash relief to property tax reform. But there is not, as of yet, one bold proposal that stands out in a similar way.“You’ve seen a stunning lack of original, big thinking from the candidates,” said Eric Phillips, a former press secretary for Mr. de Blasio.The mayor’s race is widely viewed as the most critical New York City election in a generation as voters choose a leader to guide the pandemic recovery. But weakened tax revenues could make it difficult to start ambitious new programs.Ahead of the June 22 primary, The New York Times asked eight leading Democrats and two Republicans to describe their one big idea for the city.Andrew Yang wants to offer some poor New Yorkers $2,000 per yearAndrew Yang, the former presidential hopeful, has perhaps the most memorable proposal: A pared-down version of the universal basic income plan that he championed during the 2020 presidential campaign.But instead of offering every American $1,000 a month, he proposes giving less than one-tenth of New Yorkers $2,000 on average per year.Still, Mr. Yang says his plan would be the “largest local cash relief effort in the country,” though he is still trying to figure out how exactly to pay for it.“We need to get cash in the hands of New Yorkers who need it most if we want our city to come back stronger than ever,” he said.The program would cost $1 billion per year, and Mr. Yang suggested that the city could offset some of that by closing tax loopholes for large institutions like Madison Square Garden and Columbia University.Eric Adams wants to create the ‘People’s Plan’Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, is proposing a “People’s Plan” with three components: tax credits for poor New Yorkers, free and low-cost child care for children under 3, and an app called MyCity to apply for benefits like food stamps.Under Mr. Adams’ tax credit plan, which he is calling NYC AID, poor families would receive about $3,000 per year.He also wants to give child care providers space in buildings owned by the city and offer developers incentives for charging them low rents.“Nothing holds back a woman’s opportunity to move up in business or to be employed than the lack of child care in this city,” Mr. Adams said. “That is devastating families.”The tax credit plan would cost about $1 billion a year. He said he would pay for it by cutting 3 to 5 percent of costs across city agencies, reducing the city work force, and increasing taxes on “ultramillionaires.”Scott Stringer wants to expand affordable housingScott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, has a plan to offer what he’s calling “universal affordable housing.”He wants to require new apartment buildings with more than 10 units to make 25 percent of them affordable to low- and middle-income families. And he wants to convert nearly 3,000 vacant lots owned by the city into affordable housing run by nonprofit groups.“The big real estate developers hate this plan — and for me, that’s a badge of honor,” Mr. Stringer said.His housing plan would cost about $1.6 billion per year. He would pay for it with a so-called pied-à-terre tax on luxury second homes and by reducing the need for homeless services, among other measures.Multiple candidates cited plans to strengthen child care and make it more affordable.Kirsten Luce for The New York TimesMaya Wiley wants to make child and elder care more affordableMaya Wiley, a former counsel to Mr. de Blasio, has a universal community care plan to offer 100,000 families a $5,000 annual grant to care for children and older people.The plan includes building “Community Care Centers” that would provide free child care, job training and activities for seniors, with a goal of reaching 300,000 New Yorkers in the first year.“As mayor, I will help us create a caring economy, where we invest in families through child care grants, so families can take care of themselves,” she said.Ms. Wiley wants to pay for the program, which would cost about $500 million, through local and federal funding, including by freezing the hiring of police and correction officers for two years.Dianne Morales wants to create a ‘community first responders department’Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, has excited left-leaning voters with her plan to defund the police.Ms. Morales wants to cut the $6 billion annual police budget in half and spend some of that money to create a “Community First Responders Department” to address homelessness and mental health crises.Ms. Morales said that the police could not continue to “profile, criminalize, and kill Black people with abandon.”“We need to keep the police out of interactions where their presence is likely to do more harm than good,” she said.Kathryn Garcia wants to cut down on bureaucracyKathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, says her overarching priority is to “make government work.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media 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#121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}She wants to cut homelessness in half and make repairs to public housing, and she would reform the city’s permitting system for small businesses.Ms. Garcia said she thought some candidates were promising programs the city could not afford, and that others knew very little about procurement.“The truth is, the radical big idea that New Yorkers desperately want is simple: Cut the bureaucratic nonsense and actually make city government work equally for everyone,” she said.Ray McGuire wants to use a ‘comeback plan’ to create jobsRaymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, has proposed a “comeback plan” that includes subsidies, tax relief and a jobs program.His “job accelerator” would cover half the salary for workers for one year at small businesses that suffered during the pandemic. He also wants to work with state leaders to let small businesses keep a portion of the sales tax they collect for one year.“We have one shot to get this right,” Mr. McGuire said. “If we don’t succeed in putting New Yorkers back to work then no amount of subsidy or spending on social programs is going to make a dent on the catastrophic consequences of mass unemployment.”His plan would cost about $1.8 billion over two years. He would pay for it through federal stimulus funds and by possibly reversing some of Mr. de Blasio’s budget commitments and making other budget cuts.Shaun Donovan wants to create ‘15-minute neighborhoods’Shaun Donovan, the former federal housing secretary, has offered so many plans — roughly 200 pages of them — that he jokes that choosing a favorite is like choosing between his sons.His top priorities are “equity bonds” — giving $1,000 to every child, and up to $2,000 per year, to help close the wealth gap for poor families — and “15-minute neighborhoods,” where every New Yorker would have access to good schools, transit and parks within 15 minutes of their home.“Not all New York City neighborhoods are created equal, and many New Yorkers lack adequate access to basic necessities like fresh food, quality health care, and reliable transportation,” Mr. Donovan said.Mr. Donovan said the neighborhood plan would require zoning changes and tax incentives to support private investment. Transit upgrades would be paid for by so-called value capture on real estate development and a tax on marijuana sales. Curtis Sliwa wants to reform property taxesCurtis Sliwa, a founder of the Guardian Angels who is running as a Republican, wants to reform property taxes and use the money to hire more than 3,000 additional police officers.Like Mr. Yang, he wants to make institutions like Madison Square Garden pay more taxes. He also wants to cap property tax rates and assess properties at their actual fair market value, among other measures.The city’s method of calculating property taxes has long allowed owners of multimillion-dollar brownstones in Brooklyn and high-rise co-ops by Central Park to pay less in taxes than working-class homeowners in the South Bronx, relative to the value of their properties.“My comprehensive property tax reform plan will finally deliver a fair, transparent property tax system to New York City and will generate enough new revenue to fully re-fund our police,” he said.Fernando Mateo wants to achieve ‘universal teen employment’Fernando Mateo, a restaurant operator who is also running as a Republican, said his big idea was a voluntary year-round jobs program for teenagers, ages 14 to 18, called “Alpha Track.”Mr. Mateo said he dropped out of school at 14, and that he wanted to improve the drop-out rate and prevent teenagers from getting into trouble.“This is about getting them out of their community and exposing them to what New York is all about — exposing them to corporate America, city agencies and small businesses,” he said. 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