City/Town: Apple Valley

Legislative District: House District 56A

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?

Minnesota has a housing shortage and it affects every community. The solution will need to be determined and developed differently to meet the local and regional needs. All options need to be on the table to create the housing necessary. Public- private partnerships can work for some areas. County Development projects fill gaps in others for low income and Section 8 vouchers. State programs subsidizing a certain number of units through the Liveable Cities initiative creates more inventory. Our Housing policy must be as diverse as the needs we face. Our policy and funding priorities must address disparities and increase inventory for the long term. First time homebuyer loans at lower interest rates are one option. This will take revenue, persistence and measurement. Finally, we need to address the barriers to building basic need shelters that are often blocked by rules and regulations centered around local control. Navigating this type of obstruction will be critical to finding solutions.

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?

Helping someone stay in their home is usually cheaper than trying to find new housing. Less disruption reduces instability and the cycle of homelessness. Utilizing community organizations that are willing to help with this work will be critical in light of so many reductions at the federal level. Some hospitals have been engaged in finding housing for patients because stable patients need to leave the hospitals and make room for new patients. This overlap of health to housing is a critical consideration and illustrates the complexity of the public health problem. Wrap around services provided in temporary or interim shelters can make a big difference. With all the federal cuts in front of us solving the challenge of housing will be more complicated.

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?

It is harder to buy a home now than it has been in the past. Costs have soared. Incomes have not kept up. The age of first-time homeowners has increased to over 40 years. We need to stick with some tried and true methods. First generation homeowner loans are effective and we should expand them. Down payment assistance programs with long term lower interest loans would be impactful. We need to utilize new federal laws to reduce private equity buying up inventory and driving up market costs. We also need zoning reforms.

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 more multifamily building in select commercial zones, especially if the sites are near mass transit routes. Including apartment inventory in certain commercial areas where infrastructure can accommodate this makes sense locally for commercial activity. Retail on the first level, apartments above, this will help increase inventory and mitigate sprawl. I definitely support smaller lot sizes and more flexibility with regards to existing lots to add additions or a right size dwelling to add to inventories. I support permitting new apartment housing in vacant office buildings. I also support removing restrictions on a segment of city lands to permit multi-family units to be added in residential areas when the infrastructure exists.

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?

Without new revenue the housing crisis will only continue to grow. The magnitude of the problem will require all types of reforms, none of which will solve it entirely. I am open to finding and developing a stable revenue stream to fund more ways to increase the homes we need in Minnesota.

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

Homelessness is a real problem in my community. It has a real impact on so many other societal issues. For many people meeting the shelter necessity is the pre-requisite to tackling their other problems. While there are good things happening locally it seems that it is never enough. A year-round shelter would be a great step locally.