City/Town: St. Peter
Legislative District: House District 18A
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
As a social worker, housing advocate, and disabled person, I have seen the impacts of the lack of investments in housing all Minnesotans. At the homeless shelter I work at in Mankato, we see disproportionate numbers of elderly, disabled, and BIPOC clients utilizing both our night shelter and drop in center resources. Mankato serves as a hub in Southern Minnesota being one of just a few shelters south of the Twin Cities between South Dakota and Wisconsin. So we often see individuals who formerly resided in rural communities as well. These disparities are unacceptable.
We should further define housing discrimination to include socio-economic class as a protected class. We should prioritize building universally-accessible housing to accommodate the variable needs of Minnesotans with disabilities and allow people to age in place. We need to rein in gentrification and restrict the power that corporations and private equity have to purchase homes. We should create meaningful financial pathways to homeownership for all, but especially those most impacted by disparities in housing.
We should incentivize restoring and repurposing of existing structures to help meet housing needs. We need to continue to educate and raise awareness about disparities and the lack of investments to adequately eliminate them.
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?
I have spent much of my career working with people and families experiencing homelessness and housing instability. I currently work at an overnight emergency shelter and have worked in housing programs and residential treatment programs. The best option for many people struggling with housing instability is to provide support to keep them housed and prevent homelessness.
We need to invest in programs that prevent homelessness and provide financial support, social and emotional support, and accountability to help keep people housed.
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?
I would like to find ways to prioritize restoring existing housing as a pathway to homeownership. I’m a fan of alternative homeownership models like cooperatives and community land trusts. I am interested in exploring options for renters to purchase their rental home/unit should the owner decide to sell it. Manufactured homeowners should have opportunities for more control over their parcel and the park.
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?
This is a space where we need to find a balance between statewide solutions and local control. Some cities use zoning to restrict the types of housing being built in order to restrict the type of resident of said housing. I think this could be considered discriminatory and we need to rein actions such as these statewide.
I support statewide zoning reforms that would remove unnecessary restrictions on housing/lot size and parking minimums. I also support reforms that would increase housing density by more easily developing formerly used commercial sites, requiring standards of good reason for exclusion of multi-family housing in residential zones, and making it easier for homeowners to build accessory dwelling units, proportional to their lot size.
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?
Housing is a human right and many communities throughout the state are projected to have massive housing shortages through the next decade. We need to find funding to support the creation of housing to accommodate our communities’ needs and ensure that every Minnesotan can afford to live in the community in which they work, learn, or otherwise wish to live.
I am a big fan of the proposed constitutional amendment to reliably fund housing and will gladly champion that bill.
I also think we should explore alternative revenue streams across the board to increase the state’s ability to invest in ensuring that basic needs, like housing, do not go unmet.
Q6: If you have other housing policy priorities, especially specific to your district’s housing needs, please share them here.
We need to establish secure funding for preventing and responding to homelessness. The Mankato area would benefit from a permanent, 24 hour shelter that can more reasonably meet the needs of our homeless population.
I would love to see more dedicated student housing for MSU, Mankato students.