Issues

Street safety issues exist throughout District 6’s neighborhoods. Whether the solution is a large street redesign project or the installation of speed humps, we must improve streets for safer walking, biking, and driving.

It is critical to make our city more environmentally sustainable and stem the effects of climate change.

Our state legislature has not only failed to recognize and address the climate crisis at the state level but has actively worked to strip our local government of the tools it has to address air pollution, the effects of which disproportionately impact Black residents and communities of color. As a result, Metro Council has a heightened responsibility to address environmental justice issues within their power at the local level.

• Improving public transportation and bike lanes to reduce carbon emissions
• Removing environmental hazards to health, such as lead and industrial contamination
• Advocating for our neighborhoods with brownfields, such as the Rhodia Chemical site in Park Hill
• Addressing the impacts of extreme temperatures and weather, especially for vulnerable residents
• Improving street and sidewalk clean-up to decrease water pollution and safety hazards

Gun violence is an issue that is personal to my family, like so many other families across this city who have been directly impacted. Whether you have lost a loved one, live with mental and physical impacts each day as a survivor, support a survivor, or experience worry about future gun violence, this issue impacts our community in profound ways. Expanding public health solutions to gun violence is key to peace, community safety, and healing. We must push for commonsense gun safety solutions in every way we can at the local level and work collaboratively for solutions in Frankfort.

Police misconduct is harmful to people and makes our community unsafe. In 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice documented serious issues with policing in our city in a 90-page report, following an extensive investigation. There can be no justice or community safety for all until those issues are meaningfully addressed. Metro Council has a role in ensuring the necessary changes are made.

We lack enough affordable housing in Louisville, including every housing market area in District 6. Louisville’s 2019 Housing Needs Assessment shows that our greatest need is housing for people with the lowest incomes, or those making up to 30% of the Area Median Income (AMI), followed by people making up to 50% of AMI. District 6 has experienced the highest levels of evictions out of all 26 Metro Council districts, which means we have a lot of housing instability and no reliable safety net. Evictions are expensive, with costs getting passed along to other tenants, affecting us all. We must explore neighborhood-tailored strategies for supporting affordable housing and ensuring the Louisville Affordable Housing Trust Fund continues to be funded. But in the process of increasing affordable housing, Metro Council members have a responsibility to reject giveaways of public money that don’t maximize community benefits and meet our needs.

As a community, we have a responsibility to care for each other, including our unhoused neighbors. Experts agree that homelessness is a solvable problem. The key is investing in solutions that work. In addition to solving our affordable housing crisis, we must increase the number of shelter beds in our city. In late January 2023, there were 581 more unsheltered people than there were shelter beds. An average of 12-15 families are waitlisted for shelter each night. We must also remove barriers to shelter and stop the cruel and counter-productive practice of clearing camps. Investing in solutions to these systemic problems and making good policy is how we care for our neighbors.

District 6 is a collection of 9 historic neighborhoods with some serious preservation credentials that we must continue to strengthen. Old Louisville is a preservation success story that continues to unfold, with the distinction of having the largest collection of Victorian homes in the entire country. Louisville also has the most well-preserved shotgun houses in the country, with design origins from the Caribbean and Africa. This style of home is found across the city and District 6, including in Algonquin, Germantown, Limerick, Meriwether, Old Louisville, Paristown Pointe, Park Hill, and Shelby Park. Not only are historic homes beautiful, solidly built, and a connection to the past, but preserving existing structures is greener than tearing them down and building anew. Historic neighborhoods were designed to be dense and walkable, meaning preserving them furthers our goals for affordable housing, environmental sustainability, and connected community. As someone who lives in a historic neighborhood and has worked to lovingly restore my historic home, I understand the issues and challenges and seek to empower and support residents and preservation efforts by addressing systemic barriers to preservation.