Question One:
Recently, housing advocates won a historic victory with the commitment to dedicate the Battery Park City surplus ($130 million) to affordable housing. Meanwhile, housing affordability is still out of reach of most New Yorkers. As mayor, what is your plan to create and preserve more affordable housing? How will you ensure that any housing developments include an affordable housing component that reflects the need of the neighborhood? How will you work to combat the growing cases of illegal tenant evictions and displacements due to gentrification in the Chinatown and Lower Eastside neighborhoods? How will you ensure the preservation of the current affordable housing stock?

Question Two:
Greenpoint-Williamsburg won a major victory by securing 33% of affordable housing units in the City’s plan to redevelop Williamsburg’s waterfront and Hudson Yards on the West side of Manhattan secured 25% of affordable housing units for the community.

As mayor, how will you guarantee at least 50% affordable housing units on the City owned Municipal Parking Lot 1 site in Flushing, Queens?

Question Three:
Similarly, there are several city-owned sites in Chinatown/LES (e.g. the Seward Park renewal) site. As mayor, what will you do to ensure the development of at least 50% affordable housing units on this and many other city-owned sites in Chinatown/LES?

Question Four:
The court has ordered for more equitable funding to New York City’s public schools. It has ruled in the landmark Campaign for Fiscal Equity case that $5.6 billion more per year is required to be spent on New York City’s public schools.

As mayor, how will you create more programs for bilingual students and services for immigrant students and families? What will you do to reduce class sizes?

Question Five:
Despite the overall decrease in crimes in the city, Chinatown/LES has experienced several incidences of hate crimes and sexual assaults. Furthermore, the level of crimes may have been higher, for few actually report them due to language barriers.

As mayor, what will you do to ensure the safety of those residing in Chinatown/LES? In addition, what will you do to facilitate the reporting of crimes from those who don’t speak English?

Question Six:
As an aftermath of September 11th, heightened security has led to the closing of Park Row, which has greatly caused commercial traffic in its surrounding Chinatown neighborhood. The traffic has cost severe congestion on the surrounding streets, increased response time from emergency medical vehicles and decreased quality of life from neighborhood residents.

As mayor, will you open Park Row, and if so, when?

Question Seven:
Chinatown’s local economy has suffered severely after September 11th, especially in the garment and tourist industry. The shut down of garment businesses have caused a large number of displaced workers. As mayor, what will you do to increase the access of job training programs for immigrants?

Question Eight:
With today’s growing number of children being raised from bilingual families, it is becoming more prevalent for the younger generation to accompany their parents and grandparents to places, including hospital visits in order to translate for them. This inconvenience does not only create stress on the child’s life but may also impose a negative impact on his/her education. Furthermore, due to the difficulty in the translation of medical terms, misinterpretation of the diagnosis can lead to serious consequences.

As mayor, what will you do to ensure better communication between healthcare staffs and patients who speak different languages?

Question Nine:
Immigrant advocates have celebrated the success of Executive 41. However, with the passing of the REAL ID Act, our work of ensuring the rights of immigrants has been set back.

As mayor, how would you advocate for the 40% of New Yorkers who are immigrants?

Question Ten:
Since 2001, Mayor Bloomberg has appointed three Asian Americans as his commissioners.

As mayor, how would you reflect more diversity in the administration and work towards maintaining the diversity?

Click for each candidate’s response.

Fernando Ferrer
C. Virginia Fields
A. Gifford Miller
Anthony Weiner