Live Mayoral Forum: Affordable Housing

Stephen Kunselman, Sabra Briere, Christopher Taylor, Sally Petersen to field questions on homelessness, other housing issues on July 15

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A forum for Ann Arbor mayoral candidates  is being hosted tonight at 7 p.m. at St. Clare’s and Temple Beth Emeth, located at Genesis of Ann Arbor at 2309 Packard St. The forum will focus on issues of homelessness and affordable housing.

The Delonis Center on W. Huron Street is, for many, the face of the Ann Arbor s effort to shelter the homeless.

The Delonis Center on W. Huron Street is, for many, the face of Ann Arbor’s effort to shelter the homeless.

Competition for the Democratic Party’s mayoral nomination is a four-way race: Stephen Kunselman, Sabra Briere, Christopher Taylor, and Sally Petersen. All candidates currently serve on the Ann Arbor city council. Kunselman and Briere are in the middle of their two-year terms, while Taylor and Petersen have chosen to run for mayor instead of seeking re-election to their Ward 3 and Ward 2 council seats, respectively.

The topics of homelessness and affordable housing have come up at previous mayoral forums – such as those hosted by Literati Bookstore, the League of Women Voters and the Ann Arbor Democratic Party. Here’s an .mp3 file from the Dems forum that includes just candidates’ responses to a question about affordable housing: [.mp3 of responses on affordable housing]

Tonight’s forum will be moderated by Julie Steiner, former executive director of the Washtenaw Housing Alliance. Candidates will have five minutes to talk about addressing homelessness and increasing affordable housing in Ann Arbor. Candidates will then respond to questions prepared by local advocacy groups, service providers, and faith communities. Questions from the audience will then be answered.

Listen to the forum live in the embedded audio player below.

Under the audio player are two text boxes with identical content, which The Chronicle will use to provide notes to listeners. The first box scrolls automatically to the bottom of the file, while the second box requires manual scrolling. After the forum, we will replace the embedded audio player with an .mp3 recording of the event.

[July 15, 2014 Genesis Homelessness Forum Part 1]

[July 15, 2014 Genesis Homelessness Forum Part 2]

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