City/Town: Minneapolis

Legislative District: Senate District 39

Party: Other

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 equity starts with recognizing that having housing available does not mean everyone has equal access to a stable home. Income, disability, discrimination, displacement, and the loss of naturally affordable housing continue to shape who can afford to live—and remain—in Minnesota communities.

We need to protect the affordable housing we already have while producing more deeply affordable homes. That means investing in rehabilitation of aging properties, accessibility modifications, family-sized units, supportive housing, and preservation of manufactured-home communities before residents are displaced.

I also want Minnesota to invest more intentionally in community-based housing models. Community land trusts, housing cooperatives, resident-owned manufactured-home communities, shared-equity programs, and nonprofit-led development can keep public investment working for communities over generations rather than allowing affordability to disappear when a property changes hands.

For people with disabilities, housing policy must protect autonomy. Accessible housing and community-based services should make it possible for people with significant support needs to live in the community rather than having institutional settings become the default simply because appropriate housing is unavailable.

Rural, suburban, and urban communities will not need identical solutions. State resources should be flexible enough to support locally developed approaches while holding us to a common standard: Minnesotans should have a genuine opportunity to find a home they can afford, remain in their community, and build stability there.

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?

We should not wait until someone is sleeping in a shelter, car, or outside before offering meaningful help. I want Minnesota’s supportive housing strategy to intervene earlier and make it easier for people to remain in their own homes.

That means strengthening eviction prevention, emergency rental assistance, housing navigation, and programs that help people address repairs or accessibility needs before they become reasons for displacement. When someone does become unhoused, the path back to housing should be direct and coordinated rather than requiring them to navigate multiple disconnected systems.

Supportive housing should also be built around independence. People may need mental health care, substance-use treatment, disability services, transportation, employment assistance, or help navigating benefits, but receiving those services should not mean giving up autonomy over where or how they live. I support Housing First and both scattered-site and site-based supportive housing so people have options.

We also have opportunities to incorporate supportive housing directly into affordable developments. In Columbia Heights, the proposed Heights Ridge Apartments includes units designated for people with disability or homelessness-related housing needs alongside affordable family housing. I want the state to help communities replicate and adapt models like this where they fit local needs.

Success should be measured not simply by how many people enter housing, but by whether people can remain safely and stably 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?

For many renters, the barrier to homeownership is not the ability to make a monthly housing payment. It is getting through the front door—saving for a down payment, covering closing costs, qualifying for financing, and knowing which resources are available.

I want Minnesota to strengthen first-time and first-generation homebuyer assistance while building a better community-based system for delivering those resources. Nonprofits, culturally specific organizations, CDFIs, community development organizations, and housing counselors should have greater access to state resources so they can help residents prepare for ownership, navigate financing, improve credit, and connect with down-payment and closing-cost assistance.

We also need more affordable things to own. Homeownership policy cannot focus exclusively on traditional single-family homes. Condominiums, cooperatives, community land trusts, shared-equity housing, smaller starter homes, and rent-to-own pathways can create additional entry points for households priced out of the traditional market.

Keeping ownership affordable matters too. Rising property taxes, insurance, association costs, and major home repairs can push new homeowners right back into instability. Home rehabilitation assistance and targeted property-tax relief should be part of our ownership strategy.

The opportunity to build equity should not depend on whether your parents owned a home or can help with the down payment. We can build pathways that help renters become owners and help new homeowners remain owners.

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 zoning reform that gives Minnesotans more housing choices while recognizing that cities also need commercial development to maintain strong tax bases.

We should make it easier to build duplexes, fourplexes, accessory dwelling units, townhomes, smaller starter homes, and other “missing middle” housing. These options can add homes gradually within existing neighborhoods and create more attainable rental and ownership opportunities without requiring every new development to be a large apartment complex.

Commercial corridors present another opportunity, but I would approach them strategically. Allowing housing in appropriate commercial areas can bring residents closer to jobs, transportation, and services. Mixed-use development can be even more valuable because it allows communities to add housing while preserving space for businesses and expanding economic activity.

I also support reviewing minimum lot sizes and excessive parking requirements that unnecessarily increase development costs or consume land that could be used for housing or businesses. Those reforms should account for infrastructure capacity, accessibility, transit availability, and actual community needs rather than imposing the same formula everywhere.

In communities like Columbia Heights, where the commercial tax base is limited, zoning decisions have real consequences for what homeowners ultimately pay. Modernization should therefore accomplish more than increasing density. Done thoughtfully, it can create more affordable housing choices, revitalize underused properties, attract businesses, and distribute the cost of supporting a community across a stronger tax base.

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 long-term need, so it needs a long-term funding strategy. I support establishing dedicated, ongoing housing revenue rather than forcing communities and developers to depend on unpredictable one-time appropriations.

I support the proposed housing constitutional amendment and its approach of dedicating revenue across homeownership, housing stability, and affordable rental housing. Dedicated funding should supplement—not replace—the Legislature’s responsibility to make meaningful housing investments through the state budget.

I would also champion continued Housing Infrastructure Bonds and stronger use of state housing tax credits to leverage additional private and nonprofit investment. Minnesota should look for opportunities to capture more value from major development and redevelopment projects and reinvest those resources into affordable housing, particularly where growth increases pressure on surrounding communities.

How we distribute funding matters as much as how we raise it. Cities, Tribal governments, community land trusts, cooperatives, nonprofits, culturally specific organizations, and community-based developers should have realistic pathways to compete for these resources. Smaller communities should not lose out simply because they lack the staff or financial capacity of larger jurisdictions.

Reliable funding gives Minnesota the ability to plan beyond the next budget cycle—preserving existing affordable homes, building new housing, preventing homelessness, supporting first-time buyers, and leveraging public dollars to bring additional investment into our communities.

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

One of my biggest housing priorities for District 39 is preservation. Some of the most affordable home is the home someone already lives in, and losing existing affordable housing while trying to build our way out of the shortage does not move us forward.

In Fridley, that means expanding resources for rehabilitation of aging homes and apartment properties, accessibility improvements, and major repairs that can otherwise force people out. In Hilltop, where manufactured homes are a significant part of the housing stock, preservation also requires investment in the infrastructure surrounding those homes. I want the state to help communities pursue rehabilitation, infrastructure improvements, and resident or cooperative ownership opportunities that protect long-term affordability.

I am also paying close attention to how housing growth affects local finances. Columbia Heights has a limited commercial tax base, which contributes to the pressure homeowners feel from property taxes. As we add housing, I want to pair it with thoughtful redevelopment that attracts businesses, creates jobs, and grows commercial tax capacity rather than continually shifting costs onto residents.

District 39 does not need one housing model. We need to protect existing homeowners and renters, preserve naturally affordable housing, make older homes accessible, and use redevelopment strategically so housing growth strengthens the communities around it.