City/Town: St. Paul

Legislative District: House District 64B

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?

Everyone deserves an affordable, safe, stable place to live. It’s essential to human dignity and to allowing each person in our state to contribute and thrive. I’ll continue to look for ideas to housing advocates and to my legislative colleagues who specialize on these issues. But in general terms, we must expand (and ensure the quality of) our housing stock, help people to afford where they live, protect rights, and provide support for those experiencing challenges impacting their housing.

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?

Supportive housing is indeed a proven and cost-effective approach to reducing homelessness and ensuring housing stability. I’ll continue to do all that I can to help increase funding for it.

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?

Again, I’ll continue to connect with housing advocates and to my legislative colleagues who specialize on these issues, but in general we need to work on both the supply side (increasing housing units for purchase, both through increased funding and regulatory flexibility) and the demand side (assisting first-time homebuyers in taking this step).

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?

Housing is a fundamental need, and we need much more of it. Every regulatory hurdle to housing expansion should be carefully examined, and eliminated if not justified.

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?

I’m not ready to identify a specific revenue option to champion; there are a number of them that could be explored. Regardless, there’s no question that housing needs and deserves sustained and ample funding.

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

As a longtime advocate for children, I’m well aware of the negative impact that housing instability has on childhood development, learning, and so much more. I’ll continue to work to ensure a safe, stable, affordable place to live for everyone in our state.