Richmond 9th District City Council Race - 2024

So when you think about affordable housing, specifically in Southside, you also have to think about stabilization, right? Because growth is going to happen. But when we're thinking about affordable housing, we have to ensure that we have the wraparound services that are necessary for those families, whether they're coming out of public housing or whether they're just moving to a district.

They need affordable housing in order to be able to live. They have children. Their kids are separated in public schools, and so we also have to be able to understand the difference between by-right and SDPs when it comes to understanding how affordable housing is being placed in these districts, and understanding that as City Council, we also have to have conversations about what is needed in what district.

We cannot place all of the affordable housing in one district. That is just another area of concentrated poverty. And so we have to look at the city as a whole. We have declared a crisis, but a crisis where, and for who? When we talk about affordable housing - for who? So for me, it's about stabilization and growth. We need both, but we need to also make sure that we are having enough units and inventory stock for everybody.

To address the affordable housing crisis that we're having in the city, we have to pursue policies and initiatives by council colleagues, such as changing permitting in our city to streamline our processes. For developers, the ability to build new projects without the unnecessary delays that we've seen at City Hall. The permit process is getting a little better, but there's still some progress to be done to make sure the process is fully defined. Policies that require developments to ensure that affordable housing is integrated into our city’s housing stock.

We have to hold people accountable, but we also have to, as a part of accountability, have solutions. And so if we're going to hold folks accountable, we need to ask questions. We need to understand where the problems lie, and then we need to figure out what the solutions are. And part of the meals tax and part of the utility bills (billing errors), a lot of it is stemming from not having the experience that we need in our buildings and our in our departments to be able to handle it.

I mean, we're coming post-covid, and so it's not to make excuses, but a lot of it has to do with going back in and addressing the systemic issues and the systemic challenges that have been faced in the city for years now. I think in order to be able to hold somebody accountable, you have to actually know where the problems begin, where they are today, and then what you can do to address them.

I think one of the biggest issues that we have is technology. For many years, you couldn't go online to pay a lot of these bills, and a lot of those billing issues may arise from that.

So I think we need to streamline our our processes and update our technology, because that's the biggest issue. No one likes to have to mail your bill to, I think it goes to somewhere in North Carolina or Atlanta, to come back to Richmond. Why can't we do it in house? Why can't we have it right here in Richmond.