City/Town: Blaine

Legislative District: House District 32A

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?

Housing is foundational to health, economic security, education, and opportunity. Yet Minnesota’s housing market has never provided equal opportunity to everyone. We should acknowledge the effects of discrimination, exclusionary land-use practices, unequal access to credit, and decades of underinvestment and then focus on measurable solutions.

I support increasing the supply of homes at a range of prices, while intentionally expanding opportunities for communities that have historically been excluded from homeownership and stable housing. That means targeted down-payment and closing-cost assistance, culturally responsive homebuyer education, fair lending enforcement, investment in affordable rental housing, accessible housing for people with disabilities, and preservation of naturally occurring affordable housing.

We also have to recognize that inequity looks different across Minnesota. Rural and suburban communities need housing that allows seniors to remain near family, workers to live near their jobs, young adults to establish themselves in their communities, and people with disabilities to live independently. In District 32A, housing costs are increasingly putting pressure on both renters and homeowners. I want Minnesota to measure success not simply by how many units we build, but by whether people of every background and income can actually afford a safe, stable place to call home.

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?

No one should have to become chronically homeless before we decide they deserve help. I support a housing-first approach that pairs stable, affordable housing with the individualized services people need to remain housed, including mental health and substance-use treatment, disability services, employment assistance, transportation, and case management.

Minnesota should invest in permanent supportive housing while also doing more to prevent homelessness in the first place. Emergency rental assistance, eviction prevention, legal services, rapid rehousing, and support for people transitioning from hospitals, treatment facilities, foster care, and correctional facilities can prevent a temporary crisis from becoming long-term homelessness.

I also believe we need strong partnerships with counties, cities, nonprofits, schools, health systems, and community organizations. The state should provide reliable funding while allowing communities flexibility to meet local needs.

This is both compassionate and fiscally responsible. Stable housing makes it far easier for people to maintain employment, manage health conditions, keep children in school, and avoid repeated reliance on emergency rooms, shelters, and other crisis systems.

Housing is not the end of supportive housing but it is the foundation that allows everything else to work.

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?

Homeownership should not become something available only to people who already have wealth. Today, too many Minnesotans can afford a monthly housing payment but cannot overcome the down payment, closing costs, interest rates, insurance costs, property taxes, or shortage of entry-level homes.

I support expanding down-payment and closing-cost assistance for first-generation and first-time buyers, affordable mortgage programs, homebuyer education, and partnerships with organizations like Habitat for Humanity and community land trusts. We should also increase the supply of starter homes, townhomes, condos, cooperatives, and other ownership models that provide lower-cost entry points into the market.

We also need to help existing homeowners stay homeowners. For seniors and lower-income families, rising property taxes, insurance, assessments, and repair costs can threaten housing stability even after a mortgage has been paid down. Targeted property-tax relief, home repair programs, and energy-efficiency assistance can help.

In 32A, homeownership is already an important part of our community, but we cannot assume the next generation will have the same opportunity. I want young families and renters to be able to put down roots here rather than being priced out of the communities where they work and grew up.

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 reasonable, bipartisan zoning reforms that give communities more tools to build the housing people need while respecting legitimate local concerns about infrastructure, environmental protection, and neighborhood design.

Minnesota should make it easier to build duplexes, townhomes, accessory dwelling units, smaller homes on smaller lots, and multifamily housing in appropriate commercial and transit-oriented areas. We should also examine excessive parking mandates and other requirements that unnecessarily increase the cost of every new home.

This does not mean every community should look the same or that the state should ignore infrastructure capacity. Blaine, Ham Lake, Columbus, Minneapolis, and Greater Minnesota have very different development patterns. Reform should establish reasonable opportunities for housing while allowing local governments to address roads, sewer and water capacity, wetlands, public safety, and other genuine community needs.

I am particularly interested in “missing middle” housing. There is a large space between a single-family home and a major apartment complex, and options like duplexes, fourplexes, townhomes, senior housing, and smaller-scale developments can create attainable housing without fundamentally changing community character.

We cannot subsidize our way out of a housing shortage. Increasing supply—including ownership opportunities—is an essential part of making housing more affordable.

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 cannot treat housing as an occasional capital project. Housing is infrastructure, and our funding strategy should reflect that.

I support a reliable, ongoing state commitment to housing alongside bonding and one-time investments. I am open to a dedicated revenue source, including the proposed constitutional amendment, provided the structure is transparent, progressive, and ensures the revenue actually supplements rather than replaces existing housing investments.

I also support maximizing federal resources, expanding public-private partnerships, using housing infrastructure bonds strategically, and ensuring state programs leverage philanthropic, nonprofit, and private-sector investment whenever possible.

Importantly, our housing dollars should support the entire continuum: homelessness prevention and supportive housing, deeply affordable rentals, workforce housing, preservation and rehabilitation of existing homes, manufactured housing communities, and pathways to homeownership.

We should also evaluate programs based on outcomes. Reliable funding should come with clear goals around units created or preserved, affordability, geographic distribution, homeownership opportunities, and reductions in homelessness and housing cost burden.

Minnesota has an enormous housing shortage. A predictable funding source allows local governments, developers, nonprofits, and housing organizations to plan projects years in advance instead of waiting to see what funding happens to be available in a particular legislative session.

Q6: If you have other housing policy priorities, especially specific to your district’s housing needs, please share them here.

My district-specific priority is preserving the affordability people already have while creating more attainable options for the next generation.

District 32A is predominantly a homeownership community, but that does not mean housing affordability is solved. The district profile shows that 43% of renters are cost-burdened, while an extraordinary 91% of low-income homeowners are cost-burdened. We need policies that help seniors and working families remain in their homes while also creating starter homes, townhomes, senior housing, and other options for people entering the market.

I also want Minnesota to strengthen protections for residents of manufactured home communities, which are an important source of naturally occurring affordable homeownership. I support a Manufactured Homeowners Bill of Rights that gives residents meaningful notice and transparency, protects them from unreasonable practices and retaliation, strengthens enforcement of resident protections, and expands opportunities for residents or mission-driven organizations to purchase and preserve communities when parks are sold.

Finally, growth in Blaine, Ham Lake, and Columbus must be thoughtful. Housing policy should work alongside infrastructure planning, Highway 65 improvements, environmental stewardship, and protection of wetlands and open space.

My goal is straightforward: people who already call our community home should be able to afford to stay, and the next generation should still have a realistic opportunity to build a life here.