#ThrowbackThursday: Welcoming the Beard Family to Ward 3! At the last meeting, Council resumed its discussion of affordable housing. We received an update from Monroe Free of Habitat for Humanity regarding the Woodside Mills project. They are finalizing infrastructure now, and they expect to break ground on the first of 13 houses next year. By 2021, the neighborhood should be complete. We also heard from Danielle Beard, one of the Habitat homeowners in the Boyd/Morton neighborhood. She gave compelling testimony about the need for affordable housing and the positive impact this opportunity to live in Simpsonville has had on her life and the lives of her children.

Just this week I heard from two lifelong residents of Simpsonville who have had to move outside the city because they can no longer afford to live here. One commented that “there’s no place for single mothers in Simpsonville.” Think about that a minute: they’ve called Simpsonville #SimplyHome since their own childhoods, and now they cannot raise their own children here. Is that who we are? Who we want to be? Or do we want to be a city made stronger by its diversity, a city who welcomes people from all walks of life, a city where people can “age in place,” spend their lives, raise their children and grandchildren?
Personally, I think we need and want to be the latter. And that’s why we’ve spent so much time discussing affordable housing. It’s why we support Habitat for Humanity. And why we’re committed, as a Council, to developing an Affordable Housing Toolkit with diverse options for creating affordable housing opportunities in Simpsonville. There are many solutions to the problem. We just can’t ignore that there is a problem.

Read more about Affordable Housing on the #Jenn4Ward3 blog here: https://bit.ly/2WYggox