Name | Thomas Patrick Downs |
Email Address | thomasdowns@downsformayor.nyc |
What is your plan for getting the city back to work, particularly in its hardest hit sectors? What kind of workforce development programs do you envision that would provide access to communities of color and people with disabilities? | In our hardest-hit sectors, especially the arts, I propose a "New-Deal"-like plan for city hiring where we work with communities that need services and connect them with people who need work. The arts create an even more significant opportunity to help this city's youth in helping to develop new arts programs with people who need the work helping to teach children and helping them to grow creatively. We would see the creation of workshops and public performances to help promote arts and help provide programs for children to join, and the city would target these efforts in communities of color and low-income communities, which have been historically underserved in this field the city. The city government has neglected people of color in the past. With my proposals, we would see programs focused mainly in communities with people of color and have applicants who are people of color and people with disabilities prioritized to help give a wide range of people teaching children to help them see and learn about diversity. A priority will also be given to people from low-income communities to help create jobs and work to bridge the gap of income inequality growing in the city. The programs would also include public works programs, such as community beautification that would clean and restore parks; remove graffiti and trash; and fix broken city infrastructure, with this program targeted low-income communities and communities with people of color. This program would allow for the massive creation of jobs and see the same priorities to employ people of color, people with disabilities, and people from low-income communities. |
What is your plan for creating healthy stable communities? How do you envision enlivening vacant commercial and city owned spaces? | I would work with non-profit cultural groups and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs to increase the number of cultural programs and installations around the city, especially in our underserved communities, and work to employ and promote New York City residents with this program. It would also greatly benefit the community and allow for easy access to art and culture nearby to enjoy. Locations for work and housing are something that NYC has excellent access too. By working with landlords, we can get good leases for commercial space and help to provide them with a tenet to pay rent in their building, and we would also utilize city-owned properties that are vacant to allow for room to implement these programs. I would also work with small landlords within the city looking for residential tenets and would sign units off for cultural workers and artists within NYC, and make those units be rent-stabilized or controlled in exchange for a cap and possible lowering of the buildings real estate taxes. It would provide affordable living to those who need it and work in this city and allow the landlord to be still able to make property tax payments and not go into debt. |
What do you foresee is the role of creative economies in supporting economic recovery in New York City particularly for communities most affected by environmental, housing, and health instability due to COVID including our aging, immigrant, and working class communities of color? | Creative businesses work to serve the community and help bring a great deal of life and uniqueness to NYC, and we must work to help and support these businesses in a time of need. Recovering these businesses and working to incorporate them into the recovery of our communities most affected by the pandemic is essential. I would see creative economies as a means to help employ the people of an affected community to help with the recovery of businesses. I also see it to improve the quality of life for an area and help to provide necessary resources for communities to grow and become stronger together. It is a way for communities to bond, and it is also a means to raise awareness for the issues of a community. Creative business is a way to increase revenue for the businesses of an area with tourism. Tourism is necessary to the recovery of this city. This city is the cultural and economic capital of the world, and helping to promote creative businesses will help grow tourism to areas most affected by COVID. Those areas would also see increased attention by the city to help improve the community. My administration would focus on helping to improve the climate impact of an area, improving public housing, ensuring people can afford to live in their homes, and enhancing public hospitals, and creating more health clinics to serve the people of the area better. |
What is your plan for the city’s school system and what is your vision of the role that arts in education plays? | The arts in schools is something I feel very strongly about because I benefited from my school's art programs. It helped build confidence, quick problem-solving skills and helped to create a great deal of focus. It is essential to our children's growth, and I believe that every child within our school system should have access to it. Providing proper programs will help create after-school programs to keep kids out of trouble and help to give them a creative outlet, and create a support network of friends and faculty. I see an increase of funding towards these programs and a priority in future school buildings to give adequate spaces to house these programs. We live in a fantastic city where we have access to so many cultural locations that we could partner with a wide variety of different places to help kids grow their creative side and hopefully have connections to expand their work in the future. We would also offer more classes centered around the arts for students to have the opportunity to continue their growth during the school day. The arts allow for creating so many positive aspects of a child's growth that it is essential for us to encourage and facilitate how that growth can occur. The arts in school is something that I have benefitted from and would be a priority in my administration to create the means for its expansion. |
What is your plan to address the health care needs of the city's many communities? | Healthcare is a right that people deserve access to. I would ensure that healthcare services are available for the people in this city affordably. I would also expand on the healthcare plan that the city has been working to implement by making it easier to access and work with small businesses to have it offered to their staff. Ensuring that healthcare is affordable to all also requires understanding the difficulty of finding work at this time. I would ensure that people who are out of work or struggling to find work are still afforded healthcare. I would also help to connect people to job services to find employment. Preserving existing health services and locations would also be imperative to increasing healthcare in this city. |
What are your plans for supporting incarcerated and formerly incarcerated New Yorkers? | We need to work to better our justice system to be more geared toward rehabilitation than just incarceration. I would provide the restoration of education programs to incarcerated individuals, and that arts programs will be prominent within that education. Before someone is released, I would also work to create programs for job finding and internships for the best possible chance of rehabilitation being successful and incorporating that individual back into everyday life. The arts have proven themself to be beneficial to people's education at any stage of life, and we must use them as a tool to help incarcerated people. We must work to be better as a society, and helping our fellow people to have every opportunity towards positive growth is a great way to do just that. |
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