Homes for All

However, the free-market does not meet the needs of working families, while big banks and for-profit developers continue to profit off of working communities. From a history of redlining communities to modern gentrification and displacement, residential segregation patterns exist today with communities of color more likely to live in places with higher poverty rates and lower home values.

• Republicans have threatened to cut billions from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s public housing and affordable housing programs.
• The Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) has $229 million in deferred maintenance and building costs, yet only receives $10 million a year from the federal government.
• The U.S. has a nationwide shortage of more than 7.2 million affordable housing units
• In North Minneapolis, almost half of all renters have experienced an eviction filing in the past three years
• There are more than 650,000 Americans who are homeless on any given night
• Mobile homeowners are facing a crisis as their parks are continuously sold to developers, forcing them to fund the expensive move of their home or to abandon their property with nowhere to go

Vision and policy priorities

Fully fund quality, affordable housing

Across the country, communities are experiencing low vacancy rates and a shortage of affordable housing. We cannot simply trust that for-profit developers will invest in housing that is affordable to working people. We need to move towards publicly- and cooperatively-owned models of housing for all income-levels.

• Pass my Homes for All Act to provide an influx of federal housing funding with the goal of jumpstarting the market and produce 8.5 million new units of public housing over the course of 10 years to ensure that no one is denied a healthy home in a livable community
• Invest $200 billion more in the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and expand the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit to ensure a steady and timely addition of affordable rental units
• Fully fund Section 8 vouchers to help the millions of families languishing on the waitlist of assistance and invest in public housing infrastructure in order to address the outrageous backlog of repair needs​

Establish a national renters’ bill of rights

We must do more than simply providing more affordable housing. We must address the power imbalance between renters and landlords. We must empower renters to advocate for their own interests, and protect them against unjust actions by their landlord.

• I will work to pass a national renters’ bill of rights, including:
• Just-cause eviction protection
• Right of tenants to organize into a union
• Right to live in safe and healthy conditions
• Relocation assistance for those displaced
• Non-discrimination protections for LGBTQIA+, undocumented and formerly incarcerated people to access housing

Support homeownership in working class communities

Millions have still not recovered from the foreclosure and eviction crisis created by the Great Recession. We must provide support to working-class homeowners, and help them stay in their homes.

• Fully fund the Low Income Heating Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to ensure families can safely stay in their homes during Winter
• Convert the mortgage interest deduction to a flat fifteen percent tax credit, extending a tax cut to an additional 15 million working and middle-class homeowners
• Establish policies, including a federal tax credit that incentivizes mobile home park owners to sell their land to the homeowners as a resident-owned co-op or to non-profits so that the land can be maintained as an important source of affordable housing stock