Living Together

Everyone deserves to live a fulfilling life, and that starts at home. Our health, our housing, and the environment in which we live are critical parts of our lives. Akron has struggled with these basic conditions for decades, including a housing crisis that leaves many families without stable homes each year, a lack of strategy toward an environmentally-sustainable future, and racial health inequities worsened by the pandemic.

Our Living Together plan will build from Shammas’ leadership on these issues on City Council. We will provide bold, swift action for improving the health and lives of all Akron residents, built on the values of equity and transparency.

Tackling our housing crisis with new tools

Many Akronites struggle to find a safe, stable, affordable place to live, as evidenced by our city leading Ohio in eviction rates, a problem that disproportionately impacts minority and low-income residents. City Hall has a critical role to play in addressing this crisis. Our Living Together plan will implement the Right To Counsel program that Shammas has championed on City Council, so that tenants facing eviction have legal representation, reducing homelessness and saving taxpayer funds for social services. We will partner with the Akron Municipal Court to improve the current housing mediation program. We will also modernize how we enforce housing code violations, moving away from pen-and-paper inspections and restarting the city’s mandatory inspection plan to hold irresponsible housing providers accountable for unresolved, egregious living conditions.

Homelessness is a dangerous and disempowering situation for those experiencing it, and it is clear that our community needs more shelter options. We will work with the Continuum of Care coalition to thoughtfully consider new options, like additional emergency shelters and tiny homes. We also must recognize that folks facing homelessness deserve dignity and respect, including when mental health crises and safety concerns are a factor.

Creating an equitable path for development and redevelopment

Akron needs a strong housing market where everyone has decent options in order to strengthen homeownership. That means thoughtful development and redevelopment, whether building new housing or commercial spaces, or rehabbing old buildings. Yet, our neighborhoods are dotted by vacant parcels owned by the city and often struggle with transiency, violence, and blight.

Our Working Together plan will prioritize rebuilding our neighborhoods by testing better financial tools like gap financing and loan guarantee funds so that residents can directly access private loans to rehab older homes or build new infill construction on vacant lots. Our Community Development Corporations will be key partners in revitalizing our neighborhoods.

Many homeowners see the 15-year, 100% property tax abatement as unfair, largely subsidizing high-end developments in stable neighborhoods. Our Working Together plan will revise this policy so it better meets the needs of each neighborhood and doesn’t leave money on the table.

Often, big housing developments become controversial, divisive topics at City Hall. Our Working Together plan will prioritize public engagement at the beginning of the development process, so that residents’ ideas and concerns are heard before projects are finalized between city staff and developers. We will pursue strategic development in every neighborhood, while also ensuring that the people who live in our neighborhoods have a voice in deciding the future of their community.

Moving forward on overdue environmental action

In 2023, it’s clear that climate change is an existential threat to our planet. Our society’s future is increasingly linked to clean, renewable energy and other forms of environmental sustainability. More than a decade ago, Akron’s city government put together a bold environmental action plan, but since then, we’ve lacked strategic direction on this issue.

Our Living Together plan will get us back on track by joining Power a Clean Future Ohio, a coalition of statewide, nonpartisan organizations that is currently working with every other major Ohio city, providing free services to advance clean energy and the environment. We also will hire a cabinet-level staff member focused on environmental sustainability who will coordinate efforts across city government, from electrifying our fleet of city vehicles, to improving our recycling process, reversing the loss of our tree canopy, creating green building standards for new development, examining Akron’s land use policies and regulations, and finally, tracking our city government emissions and setting a goal for reductions. Additionally, through our Working Together plan, we will prioritize green energy jobs as a key component of building our economy of the future.

Improving outcomes in health and well-being

Community health has dominated public attention since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the growing awareness around health disparities for low-income communities and communities of color. Our Living Together plan will continue the important work of improving Black maternal and infant vitality through education and community support. We also will partner with local healthcare institutions and non-profit organizations to emphasize preventative health measures, fight chronic diseases, and implement the Age Friendly Akron plan to make sure our aging adults feel fully supported. These steps will improve life expectancy and quality of life for all Akronites.

A healthy community means meeting the physical and mental health needs of residents. With rising incidences of violence in the past few years and deeply entrenched poverty within our city, Akron needs a community-wide commitment to supporting the mental well-being of all our residents. Our Living Together plan will prioritize bringing a trauma-informed approach to the work of city government, whether it be targeted programs for youth violence prevention or simply responding to citizen requests.

Join the conversation

What you see here is just the start. We want to spend the next few months talking about safety, getting your feedback, and releasing more details about how we’re going to transform these ideas into action. Your input will help inform the final detailed plans the campaign will release.

WAYS TO ENGAGE