City/Town: Roseville

Legislative District: Senate District 66

Party: Republican Party of Minnesota

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?

Reduced regulations and a tax break on building materials would help incentivize the building of new homes. Legislators could encourage builders to repurpose commercial buildings into affordable housing through low interest loans or other means.

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?

The housing stabilization program was unfortunately filled with fraud and thus closed. We should restore this program but require each NGO to hire licensed social workers to receive funding. Raising the barrier to entry should help prevent fraud.

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?

We already have help for first time home buyers but prices of homes are too high. We need to focus on increasing housing which will help bring down the cost to help first time home buyers.

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?

Modernizing the zoning laws should be a local issue decided by the people who live in the community. I do not support the state mandating zoning reforms on communities.

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?

Increasing the funding from the state drives up costs. I would advocate for tax caps and lower mortgage rates especially for those on fixed incomes.

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

We have a lot of affordable housing in our senate district. At least one building was repurposed from an office building to apartments. New land is becoming available for housing development which should help drive down housing costs.