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Editor's note: This is a guest opinion by Jessica A.S. Letaw. If you're interested in sharing an opinion, reach out to damn.arbor@gmail.com or drop us a DM on twitter.
Introduction
Shortly after getting involved in local politics, I started writing up a policy wishlist every two years after the City Council primaries. It was a way of casting a vision for what I hoped would happen in the next two years; as time has gone on, it’s also become a way for me to celebrate what’s been completed or is under way, as well as the chance to lay to rest ideas whose moment has passed. This year, for the first time, I’ve decided to share this wishlist publicly; thanks, Ben and Damn Arbor, for the opportunity and the platform.
What follows is mostly a housing mini-manifesto, because that’s my area of interest and expertise. I care about expanding community accessibility through housing affordability, so that’s what I spend the most time on. I’m talking mostly about policy, although there are some areas of community process managed by staff that I’ll note. I finish up with some extras at the end to help round out the cities I live in - Ann Arbor now, and the Ann Arbor I hope to live in someday: affordable and accessible, deeply integrated with its student and renter neighbors, holding an expansive collective understanding of safety and belonging.
While this wishlist represents my opinions alone (and none of the organizations and groups with which I am affiliated), I work hard to listen to groups and people all over our community, especially those who struggle to get the attention of folks with power and influence and experience barriers to accessing the resources they need. What I hope to see in our city is, in other words, a collage of hopes I’ve heard.
Housing
I don’t need to spend any time explaining why we need to talk about housing, right? We all know already about that whole 8th most economically segregated community in the country thing? We know that since that 2015 report recommended the City of Ann Arbor add 2800 affordable housing units over the next 20 years, we’ve barely been able to add 100? We know that even though no formal redlining map exists for the city of Ann Arbor the private sector found ways to enforce neighborhood racial segregation well into the second half of the 20th century? We know about our high local incomes ($118,000), high median home prices ($484,000), low rental home availability (less than 3%), and that all this makes our community economically gated and segregated?
We can just work on our problems and not debate whether we have them, right?
Great.
The goal of this entire section is asking us to find ways, via policy, to increase affordability and expand access to housing in the city of Ann Arbor. Its structure follows the one in Jenny Schuetz’s Fixer-Upper, a housing-policy book she describes as “practical ideas to provide affordable housing to more Americans.” What I really appreciate about Fixer-Upper as a playbook is that it considers how federal, state, and local policy systems interlock to create some really detrimental housing outcomes in terms of affordability and accessibility, which is necessary because of the complexity of how American housing is governed and funded. We only have control over certain aspects of that policy here at the city level; but as our city administrator has put state and federal lobbying on the table for our community, I’m going to lift up some of those fixes as well for our lobbyists to consider as they move Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County’s interests forward.
1. We need to know more about why we have the problems we do
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