City/Town: Eagan
Legislative District: House District 52A
Party: Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
Candidate responses in italics.
Q1: Housing plays a critical role in economic stability, health, and quality of life for individuals and families. However, disparities in housing continue to affect communities of color, people with disabilities, rural communities, and other historically underserved populations. What meaningful actions should be taken to acknowledge, address, and eliminate housing inequities and advance housing opportunities for all Minnesotans
All Minnesotans should have access to safe and affordable housing in our community to support ourselves and our families. I believe we should address housing disparities by first acknowledging, tracking, and measuring the historical and systemic barriers that have limited access to safe, affordable housing and homeownership—particularly for our communities of color, veterans, people with disabilities, rural communities, and lower-income families. Next, we need to ensure that we target historic and systemic barriers in underserved communities with legislative priorities directed at increasing affordable homeownership and housing rehabilitation, expanding down-payment and first-generation homebuyer assistance, supporting accessible housing for seniors, and preserving existing affordable housing developments.
I also believe that Minnesota and our country are at our best when we do big things. We should encourage public-private partnerships that leverage public incentives, private investment, and community resources to begin an expansive and assertive building program in our state. We need an all of the above strategy to truly close the gap of more than 100,000 missing housing units in Minnesota. This is our moon shot and one of the great challenges of our time. I don’t pretend to have all of the answers, but I look forward to working as hard as I can at the legislature to help reduce racial and economic disparities in housing and help build the prosperous and fully-housed state we hope to see.
Q2: Supportive housing combines affordable housing with support services that help people who face the most complex challenges to live with stability, autonomy, and dignity. Supportive housing provides better outcomes and is fiscally responsible. What will you do to ensure community members who are unhoused or unstably housed receive the support they need to obtain or keep their own homes?
As an assistant county attorney and manager in human services work, I work every day to help support vulnerable kids and families in our community. Far too often, these families are either unhoused or unstably housed and struggling for the resources and opportunities to support their families. I believe we need to do everything we can to ensure that our unhoused community members receive the support they need to obtain or keep their own homes.
More specifically, I support community-based housing organizations that have demonstrated success helping individuals and families obtain, maintain, and repair homes. These partnerships can extend the reach of state investments, strengthen neighborhoods, create pathways to homeownership, and help families build long-term financial stability and generational wealth.
Minnesota should also strengthen eviction prevention, rental assistance, housing stabilization, and supportive housing programs so that people experiencing homelessness or housing instability can obtain and remain in safe, permanent homes. This work includes connecting people with the services they need, such as case management, mental health and substance use services, employment assistance, and other individualized supports.
Our state resources must also reach our rural and underserved communities, where access to housing and supportive services can be limited. Most importantly, policies should be informed by people with lived experience of homelessness, housing instability, and discrimination. Every Minnesotan deserves a fair opportunity to access safe, stable, affordable housing—and the support necessary to remain housed and build a secure future.
Q3: Homeownership is a way to build generational wealth, provide family and household stability, and support community vibrancy. More and more Minnesotans are priced out of owning a home because of rising housing costs, including purchase price, homeowners’ insurance, and property taxes. What steps will you take to increase opportunities for renters and first-time homebuyers to purchase homes, condos, or cooperative ownership models?
All Minnesotans should be able to build generational wealth through home ownership in our state. I plan to work to create more pathways for renters and first-time homebuyers to become homeowners by making the initial purchase more affordable and expanding the types of ownership available in Minnesota.
To accomplish this, we need to ensure that we support fast-tracking construction, in a sustainable way, to help support a broad mix of housing options in our communities. This should include zoning reform to streamline construction in partnership between our state and our local cities. We should also provide incentives for local developers to expand the supply of rental properties, attainable townhomes and starter homes, and smaller single-family homes, while helping reduce unnecessary barriers to their construction in any way we can. We should further explore cooperative housing, community land trusts, shared-equity models, and other forms of ownership that can lower the cost of purchasing and help families build equity over time.
For homeowners, we should expand access to MAHA and LAHA affordable home-rehabilitation loans and resources that help families maintain their homes and protect their investment. Partnerships among state and local governments, nonprofit housing organizations, financial institutions, and private developers can leverage resources and create more opportunities for first-time buyers. The goal should be a housing market where renters have clear, realistic pathways to home ownership and where Minnesotans can choose from a variety of affordable and sustainable ways to own a home and build long-term financial stability and wealth for themselves and their families.
Q4: In the last several years, bipartisan action to streamline building of new homes and apartments has passed in several states, including: allowing for multifamily buildings in select commercial areas, limiting parking requirements, allowing smaller homes on smaller lots, and more homes per lot in residential areas like duplexes, fourplexes, and accessory dwelling units. What reforms do you support to modernize zoning to both enable homes to be more affordable statewide and improve city tax bases?
I support all of the measures listed under bipartisan action in the question above.
I believe Minnesota should continue to modernize zoning laws to expand affordable housing options across our state. This will require state partnership with local communities to develop local zoning options that provide for affordable housing while also addressing local planning concerns in individual communities. I firmly believe that we can increase housing opportunities without assuming that every neighborhood should develop in the same way.
In addition, I support expanded construction of duplexes, townhomes, smaller homes, and accessory dwelling units. Multifamily housing should also be explored in proximity to commercial, mixed-use, and transit-accessible areas. I believe we need to reduce excessive local parking requirements and streamline permitting to help lower development costs and make building more attainable. I also believe that established single-family neighborhoods deserve thoughtful consideration. Any development should consider existing infrastructure, traffic, parking, schools, green space, neighborhood design, and the concerns of current homeowners. Communities should have meaningful opportunities to participate in planning and determine where different types of growth make the most sense. Only through a state and local partnership, can we move forward in a bipartisan way to address the housing crisis we are currently facing.
Q5: Despite housing being the largest cost in the average household budget, housing receives only a small fraction of the total state budget at just 0.3%. A lack of ongoing reliable funding for housing in Minnesota’s state budget has resulted in an undersupply of stable homes affordable to our workforce, our elders, and our families. In recent years, a constitutional amendment for housing, which would dedicate revenues from a sales tax increase to housing, has gained momentum at the legislature. What revenue options will you champion to more adequately meet our need for reliable funding for homes we can afford?
Minnesota needs a more reliable and predictable approach to funding for housing. I support exploring a dedicated, ongoing sales-tax revenue stream for housing, provided it is structured responsibly and includes strong accountability for how the funds are used.
A dedicated revenue source would allow Minnesota to make consistent, long-term investments in our state rather than relying primarily on one-time appropriations. Any funding should support the full spectrum of housing needs, including affordable homeownership, first-time homebuyer assistance, housing rehabilitation, workforce and family housing, supportive housing, and preservation of existing affordable homes.
Any new revenue should also be evaluated carefully for its impact on Minnesota families and businesses. I would further look for opportunities to leverage state investments with federal resources, local contributions, private investment, and nonprofit partnerships so that every public dollar goes further towards building affordable housing in our state.
I also believe that accountability should be central to any dedicated state funding program. Minnesotans should be able to see how funds are spent and what results they produce – including homes built and preserved, families helped into homeownership, and people who are able to remain stably housed. Through all of these efforts, I believe that we can establish a sustainable housing investment that provides communities and housing organizations with the certainty they need to plan ahead, while ensuring taxpayers receive measurable value for their investments.
Q6: If you have other housing policy priorities, especially specific to your district’s housing needs, please share them here.
In my house district, I believe any land-use policy needs to recognize that communities like Burnsville and Eagan are largely already fully-developed. Our local challenge isn’t simply finding more land; it is making thoughtful decisions about redevelopment, aging commercial properties, transit corridors, and underutilized sites, while also acknowledging and supporting long-established single-family neighborhoods.
More specifically, I support focusing housing development in our district on redevelopment areas, exploring multi-family and multi-use development in proximity to major transportation corridors, and exploring existing commercial or mixed-use sites where additional housing can be supported by existing infrastructure. I further believe that a variety of affordable housing types should be explored to create opportunities for first-time buyers, renters, seniors, and families without requiring every neighborhood to change in the same way.
I also believe that long-established single-family neighborhoods deserve particular consideration in planning decisions. Growth in these areas should account for traffic, parking, infrastructure capacity, stormwater, schools, green space, and appropriate transitions between different housing densities. Existing homeowners have made significant investments in their homes and communities and their perspectives should be a part of any planning process.
Done thoughtfully, I believe we harness state and local partners to greatly expand the type and number of affordable housing units in our community and in Minnesota. I look forward to all of the hopeful work ahead to help build strong neighborhoods, responsibly develop our local infrastructure, expand housing opportunities, and ensure sustainable local tax bases for our communities all over this state.