Homelessness, Housing and Wages
Boulder has a cost of living crisis that includes a lack of affordable housing. We have growing numbers of families relying on our food banks, school children experiencing homelessness, and people trying to live on our streets. This situation is unsustainable.
We can keep more of us housed – and prevent homelessness from growing – in the coming years. Effective solutions address the gap between people’s income and the costs of meeting basic needs. Effective solutions create more housing opportunities and provide a way for those who benefit from high housing costs to subsidize affordable housing efforts.
As a Council Member, I have:
Supported development of a day services center, 40 permanent supportive housing units, and a respite center.
Supported a guaranteed income pilot program, a minimum wage increase, and basic needs assistance for Boulder families.
Supported relaxing limitations on accessory dwelling units, duplexes and triplexes on large lots, and home occupancy.
Supported the creation of more than 5,000 homes and 3,000 jobs in a vibrant, connected new neighborhood in East Boulder.
As Mayor, I will advocate to:
Keep public spaces clean. Install more public bathrooms and trash cans in high-use areas.
Use evidence-based solutions. Pursue programs that prevent injury and death, keep families and individuals housed, and connect people with appropriate services. Expand supportive housing to reduce taxpayer costs.
Give people safe places to live. Follow the guidance of the Human Relations Commission and Housing Advisory Board: create low-density, micro-communities for people without shelter (e.g. tiny homes and safe parking sites with supportive services).
Create regional partnerships. Advocate for a regional approach to homelessness and more support from county and state partners.
Focus on prevention. Enhance eviction prevention and emergency assistance programs. Raise the minimum wage so people can afford basic needs.
Incentivize affordability. Subject additions and redevelopments of single-family homes to inclusionary housing requirements to increase funds for affordable housing. Charge corporations with more than $15M in annual profits for not paying a living wage or allowing unions.
Fund solutions. Invest in financial literacy programs, allow low- and middle-income earners to earn market-rate equity, and provide navigators to help people access local, state, and federal aid programs.
Create more middle housing. Continue to thoughtfully incorporate duplexes, triplexes, and small apartments in more neighborhoods. Eliminate parking requirements along transit corridors. Use city-owned land for affordable middle housing.
Climate, Energy and Safety
Thriving in the future means changing how we eat, how we live, and how we treat each other.
Food and energy insecurity, air pollution, water shortages, and extreme weather threaten all of us, while having the biggest impacts on people who have contributed the least to the climate crisis.
Our continued exploitation and extraction of natural resources is a primary driver of climate change. Addressing the climate crisis requires ending the use of fossil fuels. It also requires restoring our rights to clean air and water, healthy food, transportation, energy, and safe shelter, and partnering with the original stewards of these lands to restore the health of our soils and ecosystems.
Local government can - and must - play an important role in these transformations.
As a Council Member, I have advocated for:
Funding for fire and flood prevention, nature-based climate solutions like the Cool Boulder initiative, and greenhouse gas mitigation strategies.
Restoration of bus services cut during the pandemic and promoting the Core Arterial Network project that is making walking, rolling, and biking safer.
E-bike discount vouchers are prioritized for lower-income households.
Energy-efficient building code changes that include consideration of embodied carbon.
Utility assistance and energy efficient renovations for lower-income families.
Building and sustaining long-term relationships with the Indigenous Peoples who have traversed, lived in and stewarded lands in the Boulder Valley since time immemorial
As Mayor, I will advocate to:
Make car-free living more accessible. Build more safe, accessible paths for people to walk, bus, bike, and roll, and advance universal street designs that create a safe and welcoming environment for people of all ages and abilities.
Naturalize urban landscapes. Require streets and other public spaces to have trees that provide shade and dampen noise, plants that absorb excess water and support pollinators, and spaces that encourage us to connect with nature and each other.
Maximize water conservation. Require absorbent, low-water landscaping; prioritize agricultural leases to farmers who restore water-absorbent native ecosystems, provide local food, and reconnect Indigenous people with their land.
Reduce residential energy costs. Increase standards for energy efficiency, indoor air quality, accessibility, and fire and flood mitigation for rental housing. Provide subsidies to help homeowners make energy-efficient renovations.
Pursue energy freedom. Advocate for changes to state and federal law so neighborhoods and multi-family housing communities have access to resilient power systems.
Support green businesses. Prioritize affordable commercial and industrial space for businesses and nonprofits that support our climate goals, including those producing sustainable, local, biodegradable materials; those producing minimal or no waste, and those working for climate justice.
Mental Health and Addiction
We all have someone in our lives who struggles with mental illness or addiction. Many of us know through experience that although Colorado has some of the highest rates of adult mental illness, suicidal ideation, and substance use disorder in the country, we also have some of the lowest rates of treatment. Especially for people struggling with addiction. Too often, our county jail is the de facto mental health services provider, creating safety issues for both prisoners and staff.
Effective solutions require cities to work with nonprofits and with county, state, and federal partners to increase our mental health workforce and provide peer support services, community living environments, and long-term care options. Effective solutions also require addressing the socio-economic factors, like poverty and discrimination, that put people at higher risk for mental illness and substance use disorders, and providing more resources for the community-led organizations supporting higher-risk populations.
Public health is a function of the county, but cities can assist with prevention, treatment, and recovery.
As a Council Member, I have:
Supported development of a day services center where people experiencing homelessness can access health providers.
Supported city-county-nonprofit partnerships to create community-based, peer support addiction treatment centers.
Supported a guaranteed income pilot program, a minimum wage increase, and basic needs assistance for Boulder families.
Advocated for the interests of people who experience discrimination in our community, and spoken up to ensure we are including diverse perspectives in decision-making.
Educated decision-makers and policy-makers about rising mental illness and addiction and emerging, neuroscience-based treatments such as contingency management.
As Mayor, I will advocate to:
Create transitional housing. Work with nonprofit and governmental partners to create long-term, sober-supported, transitional housing for people experiencing chronic homelessness and substance use disorders and to create long-term, supported housing for people struggling with severe mental illness.
Decrease emergency response times. Expand Boulder’s mental health first responder program to provide faster response times for people experiencing a mental health or drug-related crisis, and 24 hour/day, 7 day/week coverage.
Use evidence-based solutions. Pursue programs that prevent injury and death, provide safe and supportive housing, and connect people with appropriate services.
Foster regional partnerships. Advocate for a regional approach to mental health and addiction and more support from county and state partners.
Focus on prevention. Fund community-led efforts to bolster wellness and resilience, particularly for marginalized communities that are experiencing disproportionate rates of mental illness. Enhance eviction prevention and emergency assistance programs. Raise the minimum wage so people can afford basic needs.
Workforce, Immigration and Aging
We can design a city that is prepared for our demographic changes.
As our over-65 population grows in the coming decades, we will need to be intentional about engaging our senior population now to design and plan for a city with a larger number of older adults. We need to ensure that new and renovated homes are meeting accessibility standards. We need better access to mobility services, a home health care workforce that enables older adults to live in their homes, more opportunities for social connections, guidelines for businesses to enable them to support an older workforce, and safer multi-use paths.
As an employer, I understand how challenging it already is to recruit and retain employees in Boulder. Key areas of our workforce like healthcare, agriculture, childcare, and the trades are already experiencing worker shortages. As our population ages, our city must be prepared to compete for a smaller pool of domestic workers, have better systems for supporting immigrant workers, and support an aging workforce. Without attention to this looming issue, our lack of accessible and affordable housing and our community’s struggles with racial equity will make other cities more appealing places to live and work for many in our state’s increasingly diverse population.
As a Council Member I have:
Advocated for paying city council and board and commission members a living wage for their work
Ensuring people who are part of marginalized groups are represented on city boards and commissions and are consulted on policy decisions that impact their lives.
Advocated for housing changes that will slow the rate of growth of housing costs in the coming decades.
Worked to understand how national, state, and local population changes will impact our city.
As Mayor, I will advocate for:
Collaborating with the State Demographer and regional organizations such as the Denver Regional Council of Governments to more accurately scope population changes in Boulder, so we can better understand the unique needs of our current and future residents and workers.
Ensuring our Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan update includes an awareness of our shifting demographics, such as including universal design standards for new and renovated homes and streets, to ensure more of our city’s housing units and transportation systems are accessible to older adults.
Partnering with the county and nonprofits to create more affordable assisted living communities and group homes and ensure older adults have access to affordable in-home care, meal delivery, and opportunities for social connection.
Advocating for state and federal legislation that enables international workers to more easily live and work in our city, and to transfer their professional licensures to the United States.
Partnering with local businesses, schools, colleges, and universities to fill training gaps by providing more job training opportunities for immigrants, and older workers.