With low unemployment comes more homeless

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Sioux Falls/Minnehaha county saw an almost 30% increase in homeless in one year;

In South Dakota, more than 1,100 people don’t have a place to call home, and over half of them live in Sioux Falls. Monday, the results of the one day homeless count in Sioux Falls were released.

“We had 618 homeless, and 218 of them were children,” Maria Krell, Executive Director of Good Shepard Center said.

In 2012, the homeless in Sioux Falls totaled 435 people.

Krell said, “It’s really a lack of affordable housing.”

Stacey Tieszen, who serves on the Sioux Falls Homeless Advisory Board, agrees. She said Sioux Falls did a study in 2010 that showed the city was 1,000 affordable housing units short, and we would need to build 250 units each year from there on to keep up with the growth of the city and the wages being paid.

“We’re not building that, we aren’t even remotely keeping pace with that, so we are behind the eight ball already,” Tieszen.

Tieszen said in order to afford a two bedroom apartment that costs around $800 a month, a person would have to make $14.61 an hour.

In Minnehaha County, for 44 percent of people surveyed in this count, this was their first time being homeless.

We have a combination of low unemployment, and the jobs that do exist are low paying, forcing many to have multiple jobs. Pile on the constant property tax increases, rate increases for utilities and the lack of affordable housing and what happens? People are forced to hit the streets. What’s even more scary is the amount of people who are ‘borderline’ homeless, and teetering on the edge.

There are things ‘Businesses’ can do;

– Pay workers more, but hire quality employees and train them well so you don’t have to have as many. It will balance out in the end.

There are things ‘Government’ can do;

– ONLY award TIF’s to affordable housing projects.

– REVOKE all other TIF’s that have nothing to do with affordable housing, and start charging them the proper property taxes.

– Reduce property taxes for individual property owners, especially those on fixed incomes.

– REVOKE the food tax, for everyone! Or on at least raw & fresh foods.

– Implement a corporate income tax

These constant tax breaks to those who can afford to pay the most in taxes has to end. We need to take the burden off those who can least afford it. Sadly, as Janoct Adja pointed out when running for mayor the first time, ‘even the homeless in our community have to pay taxes.’

This culture of working the poor to death without providing them affordable housing has to end. But the culture of handouts to the special interests at city hall has to end also to make this work. Once city hall has done everything it possibly can to make it more appealing for contractors to build enough affordable housing in our community, then, and only then, can we start talking about hotels on public golf courses, pickleball courts, and private indoor tennis courts for the mayor and his buddies.

 

Posted in: Homeless, Minnehaha County, Sioux Falls

Rant-a-Bit #10

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Episode #10 will be recorded on September 27 and I think will be one of our better shows. We have secured a major player in city politics (sorry, it’s not Janoct Ajda) for our guest. I encourage you to send us questions that have to do with city politics, mostly Events Center and infrastructure.

Posted in: Rant-a-Bit

Kermit Staggers; The ONLY choice for Sioux Falls mayor

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After following city politics for almost 4 years now, I will say this, everyone running for mayor in 2010 have qualifications to be the next mayor, BUT, Kermit’s qualifications overshadow them. Before I tell you why I think Kermit is the ONLY choice for mayor, I want to touch on my concerns about the other candidates. Like I said, all the candidates have qualifications that would make them ‘decent’ mayors but here is where I have my doubts;

Janoct Ajda; While Janoct understands the concerns of the working man, he has no understanding the workings of government.

Bill Peterson; Besides Kermit, Bill is probably one of the most intelligent candidates running for office. But there are two things that worry me about Bill. He wrote the flawed and possibly unconstitutional city charter and he seems hellbent on pushing a personal agenda, whether the public approves or not.

Pat Costello; I like Pat’s views on fiscal responsibility, but is that campaign talk or the real deal? I would find a Pat Costello administration as a third term of Munson. Pat’s contributors bought him and he would do the bidding of the special interests of Sioux Falls.

Mike Huether; Mike used to be my second choice, but it seems lately he has been getting desperate, attacking Kermit for being a dissenter (which I think will only backfire). While I think Mike is a guy who wants to listen to the public I struggle with his past business experience and the fact that he worked in a VERY PRIVATE industry. Something that is lacking in Sioux Falls city government is transparency, something I think Mr. Huether would struggle with, since he hasn’t been that transparent about what he did as a VP at First Premier. He talks about business experience but doesn’t tell us what he did. A lot of political double-speak from Mr. Huether.

Vernon Brown; Oh, where to begin with Vernon? Vernon does have some attributes; He is likeable and has done some great work on behalf of the homeless. Vernon also is a working class joe who has climbed the ladder all by himself, and I will give him credit for that. But after that, I’m not sure what qualifies him to be mayor. He knows how to ratchet up the rhetoric, being a reporter for Stormland TV News probably helped him in that department. But my major concerns about Vernon are simple. He doesn’t take stands and often flip-flops on issues, just look at his city council voting record. He seems to be on the fence about government transparency. And one thing you can be certain about, Vernon will spend money on unneeded ‘supposed’ quality of life projects like it grows on trees. We don’t need another Munson.

Now to Kermit. As I outlined above, this is why I think Kermit is the ONLY choice for mayor. I am not gonna go into a long rant as to why I think Kermit is most qualified, I have been doing that for months, but I will say this about him;

• Extremely Intelligent

• Caring

• Citizen Advocate

• Fiscal Conservative

• Government Experience

• Transparent

• HONEST

I think his honesty says it all to me. He is the only candidate who has been honest and sometimes has given the public the ‘Ugly truth’. That worries people. But don’t believe the Munsonites and there constant, “The truth is negative – but lies are positive.” boloney. It’s time the citizens of Sioux Falls were told the truth.

We can’t fix what is broken, if we don’t know what is broken.

It’s time to fix what is broken in Sioux Falls, and improve what is already great. VOTE STAGGERS – APRIL 13TH.

Posted in: Kermit Staggers, Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls Mayor Race