The City of Erie is in the process of developing a comprehensive housing plan and they are asking residents to join in. This week, they are hosting two listening sessions where residents can give their input.

The first listening session will be co-hosted by Erie Spiritual Coalition and is scheduled for 6 pm this Wednesday at the Cathedral of St. Paul on 134 West 7th St. They are also providing free childcare so that as many people as possible can participate.

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The Very Reverend with the Erie Spiritual Coalition explained how the session will work: “They have consultants coming who are going to be working on developing the city’s next housing plan. So, I think they’d like to hear from as many residents as possible, from all sorts of neighborhoods, from homeowners to renters to landlords to the unhoused, so that everyone has input in the city that belongs to all of us,” The Very Reverend Melinda Hall told us.

Erie city’s Director of Neighborhood and Economic Development says that they will be approaching this housing plan from several viewpoints, “What’s available- what is our housing stock available, what’s missing- what are those barriers. Why aren’t people going into homeownership and then also how do we support that from the city level?” Cathryn Easterling told us.

According to Gary Horton, CEO of the Urban Erie Community Development Corporation, the barriers keeping a lot of residents from homeownership are systemic- and they have been a problem for decades.

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“You have to balance your housing efforts to prioritize meeting the needs of homeless people, with those needs of the people that are marginalized, systemically discriminated against, and had to face legal barriers like covenants and other things that prevented them from becoming a homeowner,” he said, emphasizing the importance of efforts like this housing plan prioritizing certain demographics.

The second listening session, co-hosted by Erie County United, Urban Erie Community Development Corp, and NAACP of Erie, will be held at the Smith Quality of Life Learning Center on 2046 East 19th St. this Saturday at 12 pm.

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