Here in Richland County, 22% of our brothers and sisters live below the poverty level and over 16,000 families are in need of affordable housing, and we can’t seem to get our proposal for an affordable housing trust fund out of committee. With a picture that looks this bleak, why do I continue to work for Justice? Because fear feeds anxiety; hope breeds optimism. Fear divides; hope unifies. I believe in hope.

In addition, both CPD and RCSD have started implementing partnerships between law enforcement officers and a social worker to address mental health related calls. Since COVID paused CIT training for a time, we will be working to follow-up with both the Chief and Sheriff to ensure they are filling all of the available CIT classes available to them. Between the City and County that is five trainings a year with a capacity of 25 officers each to train.

The first step for GVI and for many gun violence reduction strategies is to conduct a comprehensive problem analysis by outside experts to have a clear assessment of where the violence is happening, why, and what are the dynamics in place. This will then indicate where law enforcement, social services, and community voices can most effectively focus their resources to drive the number of shootings to 0.

We want $10 million in ARPA funds to be allocated as seed money for a Housing Trust Fund in Richland County. A key for a HTF to be effective is to have a dedicated source of revenue down the line, but we need seed money to get started. An Affordable Housing Trust Fund has the potential to create hundreds and even thousands of units of housing each year and that is what we need to make sure everyone in Richland County has a safe and affordable place to live.