City/Town: Kettle River

Legislative District: Senate District 11

Party: Forward Independence

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 inequity did not happen by accident, and it will take measurable action to undo it. I will support stronger fair-housing enforcement, including testing and penalties for discrimination in renting, lending, appraisals, and access for people using rental assistance. State housing dollars should be distributed using public data on cost burden, homelessness, disability access, racial disparities, and rural housing shortages not simply which communities can afford the best grant writer.

I will prioritize preservation and construction of deeply affordable, energy-efficient, accessible homes; rehabilitation of aging rural housing; manufactured-home park stability; and down-payment and home-repair assistance. Projects receiving state funds should meet meaningful accessibility standards and include people with disabilities in design and oversight.

Minnesota must also invest through trusted local, Tribal, culturally specific, and disability-led organizations. Small towns need technical assistance and infrastructure funding for water, sewer, roads, and broadband so they can actually build housing.

Finally, I will require transparent outcomes: who received assistance, where homes were created or preserved, whether they remain affordable, and whether disparities narrowed. Equal opportunity means more than opening an application; it means removing the financial, physical, and institutional barriers that keep Minnesotans from a safe 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?

As a former homelessness-prevention social worker, I have seen how a relatively small amount of timely help with rent, utilities, transportation, or paperwork can keep a household from losing its home. I will fight for stable, ongoing funding for the Family Homeless Prevention and Assistance Program, emergency rental assistance, street outreach, shelters, and permanent supportive housing.

A building alone is not supportive housing. Capital funding must be paired with dependable operating and service dollars for voluntary, person-centered case management, mental-health and substance-use care, disability supports, employment assistance, and transportation. Services should follow the person and respect autonomy rather than make housing conditional on treatment or perfect compliance.

I will push state agencies, counties, Tribal governments, health systems, and community providers to coordinate one plan instead of forcing people to navigate disconnected systems. We should expand landlord-risk and mediation programs, legal help, and rapid response before eviction or utility shutoff.

Finally, I will demand measurable results while protecting privacy: housing retention, fewer emergency-room visits, fewer returns to homelessness, and shorter waits for accessible units. Preventing homelessness and helping people remain housed is more humane and far less costly than repeated crisis intervention.

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 policy must help people purchase a home and keep it. I will support down-payment and closing-cost assistance, affordable fixed-rate loans, first-generation homebuyer programs, and rehabilitation financing for older rural homes. Assistance should be usable for manufactured homes, condominiums, community land trusts, and limited-equity cooperatives not only traditional single-family houses.

I will also support pathways that help renters prepare for ownership: voluntary rent-payment reporting, matched savings accounts, financial counseling, and lease-to-purchase programs with strong consumer protections. We must enforce fair lending and appraisal laws so race, disability, or ZIP code does not determine who receives credit or how a home is valued.

But subsidies alone will not solve the problem if supply stays scarce. Minnesota should finance starter homes, smaller homes, infill development, and the conversion of suitable vacant buildings while requiring long-term affordability when public dollars are used. We should expand community land trusts and cooperative ownership so public investment benefits more than one buyer.

I will also work to reduce the costs that push current owners out by strengthening property-tax refunds for modest-income households and seniors, investing in weatherization and home repairs, and examining insurance availability and rate transparency. Building generational wealth starts with fair access, but it also requires stable, sustainable ownership.

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 practical zoning reform that creates more choices without treating every Minnesota community the same. Cities should generally allow accessory dwelling units, duplexes, townhomes, and small-lot starter homes in appropriate residential areas, as well as housing in selected commercial corridors. Communities should also review excessive parking mandates, aesthetic requirements, minimum garage sizes, and lengthy approval processes that add cost without protecting health or safety.

For larger cities, fourplexes and higher-density housing near jobs, schools, services, and transit can make sense. In rural towns, the better fit may be duplexes, senior apartments, manufactured homes, or converting vacant buildings. The state should establish a flexible baseline or menu of reforms while preserving local decisions involving water and sewer capacity, wetlands, shoreland, farmland, emergency access, and Tribal rights.

Reform must include accountability. Smaller lots should not merely produce larger, expensive houses, and public incentives should secure genuine affordability. Minnesota should provide planning assistance and infrastructure grants so small communities are not handed an unfunded mandate.

As a former city council member, I respect local knowledge. I also know outdated rules can unintentionally block the homes a community needs. The goal is a workable partnership: remove unnecessary barriers, protect public health and the environment, and give communities the tools to expand their tax base responsibly.

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 support placing the housing constitutional amendment before voters because housing needs reliable, protected funding. I would pair any sales-tax increase with expanded refundable credits or rebates so low- and moderate-income families are not asked to carry a disproportionate share.

I would also champion a dependable General Fund base appropriation, recurring housing infrastructure bonds, a dedicated share of mortgage registry and deed tax revenues, and the redirection of ineffective corporate subsidies and tax breaks toward affordable housing. We should maximize federal matching funds and require reasonable local or private participation where appropriate without excluding small rural communities that have limited tax capacity.

Reliable funding must support the full housing continuum: homelessness prevention, supportive housing services and operations, affordable rental construction and preservation, first-time and first-generation homeownership, rural infrastructure, accessibility, and rehabilitation of existing homes. A portion should be distributed by need so Greater Minnesota, Tribal communities, people with disabilities, and communities of color receive a fair share.

I will insist on long-term affordability requirements and public reporting for every major investment. Minnesotans deserve to know how many homes were created or preserved, whom the programs served, and whether the investment reduced housing-cost burdens.

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

Senate District 11 needs a rural housing strategy. Our communities need homes that teachers, health-care workers, first responders, childcare workers, tradespeople, seniors, and young families can afford. I will prioritize Greater Minnesota workforce-housing funds and grants for the water, sewer, roads, and site preparation that small cities need before a project can be built.

We must also preserve what we already have. I will expand owner-occupied rehabilitation, weatherization, lead and mold remediation, well and septic assistance, and accessibility modifications. Older adults and people with disabilities need more single-level, accessible homes near health care, groceries, and transportation. Creating those options also frees larger homes for growing families.

Manufactured homes are an important source of naturally affordable housing in our district. I will support infrastructure repairs, fair consumer protections, resident cooperative ownership, and safeguards against sudden displacement when parks are sold.

I also support converting appropriate vacant schools, commercial buildings, and other underused properties into housing when the structure and location make sense. State programs must be easier for small towns, Tribal communities, and local nonprofits to access, with regional technical assistance rather than complicated applications that favor large developers.

My priority is housing that strengthens existing communities, adds to the local tax base, and allows people to live near their jobs and families without sacrificing safety, affordability, or the environment.