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Fair Housing & Fair Chances

Can you join us Monday evening August 19 at the Kalamazoo City Commission meeting to support our Fair Chance and Fair Housing ordinance proposals?  Come well before 7:00 to get a seat, in your ISAAC T-shirt if possible.  We’d love your support for our Public Comment speakers and for City Commissioner Patrese Griffin, the primary author of the proposals! (The date might get delayed, so check with ISAAC or City Hall before you come.)

Even 6000 new affordable housing units would not be enough to solve our homelessness crisis unless the City Commission adopts these proposals.  Why?  Because lack of housing is not the main problem for many people.   As long as people’s applications for housing can be automatically rejected because of their “source of income” (a housing voucher!) or because of a past eviction (no matter what the circumstances) or because of a criminal record (no matter how long ago or how responsible they have been since then), many adults and their children will remain homeless.

After the City of Kalamazoo adopts our Fair Chance and Fair Housing ordinance proposals, we hope that Kalamazoo Township, the City of Portage, Oshtemo Township and more will adopt the proposals too. (In the photo we’re meeting with Portage City Council Member Chris Burns.) If you live in one of the municipalities surrounding the City of Kalamazoo, we would love your help to get our proposals on your city or township board’s agenda!

– Tobi Hanna-Davies & Stephanie Hoffman, Housing Task Force co-chairs