Housing has been near and dear to me for longer than I realized.

My mom had to fight with FHA to get approved for the loan to purchase a house as a single parent of two small children. (She still has that house 41 years later…)

When I was first elected, I realized that I was the only member of Council who had to purchase a new house in the Dexter (village/city) for a decade and a half or more. Even with a better than average household income, it was very difficult to find a place that we could afford.

As a practicing urban planner, I have a working knowledge of many of the issues related to housing choice and housing costs. I have spoken with business owners in many communities who have shared their challenges finding workers.

So, shortly after I was elected, I started to suggest that we should form a housing task force to examine the issue. This suggestion did not find fertile ground until a school official shared with Council that it was becoming difficult to attract and retain teachers because they could not afford to live in the community.

We did establish a Housing Task Force that did a decent job of examining the current conditions.

Unfortunately, the next phase was cut short with the whole Covid-19 global pandemic thing.

If elected your mayor, I will reconvene the Housing Task Force to continue the work it started.

We should reach out to our local employers to see what challenges they have faced. We should reach out to our residents to see what challenges they have faced. We should develop Dexter-sized plans to address those challenges.

We have a lot of multi-generational families living under one roof. I want to find ways that we can improve that experience for our families.

Lack of (local) workers has already limited the hours of operation for our businesses.

As a community, we need to be more proactive in examining and working on this issue.