Tomisha Cook asks Anne Arundel County executive candidates how they plan to help struggling families keep housing at a candidate forum as Chantel Seetram, a resident who brought similar concerns, listens. (Photo by Danielle J. Brown/Maryland Matters)
Chantel Seetram, a mother of two adult children, believed Anne Arundel County was going to be her “start-over place” after moving from Baltimore following significant trauma her family experienced there.
“It’s been difficult,” she said at the Michael E. Busch Annapolis Library Thursday. “Whether it’s jobs not understanding I had a child to take care of and get to therapy three times a week … I kept losing jobs,” she said. “When it came to my housing, that was affected. I have had an eviction notice before and the process is very, very difficult.”
Hers was just one of the stories that put story the stakes of Anne Arundel County’s affordable housing crisis on full display at a county executive candidate forum Thursday.
Three of the four Democrats running for executive were at the forum hosted by the Anne Arundel Affordable Housing Coalition: Councilmember Allison M. Pickard, Councilmember Peter Smith, and James Kitchin, the longtime staffer to the current County Executive Steuart Pittman (D).
Democrat Kyle Nembhard, a program manager with Amtrak, had cancel due to a last-minute conflict, event organizers said. He said in a follow-up email that he doesn’t anticipate missing future candidates forums, because it’s important to “participate in open dialogue as provided by forums like these.”
The sole Republican candidate, Dave Crawford, a volunteer firefighter, did not attend. He did not immediately respond to request for a comment on his absence.
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The forum focused largely on the policy challenges that hold up development of new affordable housing projects – the time it takes to approve those projects, the many regulatory hurdles developers have to navigate, and efforts to boost public transportation, create county housing targets and similar topics.
Seetram said she was getting to a place of more stability in her life now and wanted to hear how the candidates plan to build better social service interventions to make it easier to obtain housing in challenging circumstances.
She wasn’t alone.
Tomisha Cook works with families from Annapolis Middle School facing housing challenges. She wanted to know the candidates’ plans to coordinate resources to help families before the eviction notice comes in.
“They are having issues with keeping their housing,” Cook said. “It could be mental or emotional things that could cause issue that would prevent them from being able to work or just take care of the things that they need to take care of.”
The candidates appeared moved by Seetram’s and Cook’s perspective.
Smith said his mom struggled with housing instability throughout his childhood. In the last few years of high school, he lived with his aunt, which made it challenging for him to focus on schoolwork.
He told the audience that he would like to create more guardian and mentorship opportunities with young kids in similar situations to boost career and workforce development opportunities, so they have the tools to pull themselves out of housing instability.
Kitchin argued that more funding needs to go toward the housing programs in the county government so residents facing those challenges can more easily access helpful resources.
Pickard said that housing policy decisions need to include more voices from communities who are likely to face housing instability, because the “loudest and wealthiest voices are the ones that typically are in our council chambers.”
At the end of the two-hour forum, the candidates made their last pitch on why they should earn the vote for county executive.
Kitchin harped on his ability to bring communities and groups together to move forward on obtaining more affordable housing.
“I am proud of the leadership and the work that the Pittman administration has done on this topic, and I am proud to have his endorsement to carry this work forward,” he said. “What I think we need to think about, too, as we approach this wholistically is not just coalitions among politicians and elected officials but also coalitions around community members, different groups that we are fighting for to get these things done.”
Smith told the audience that those with experience facing housing instability are the best people to combat it.
“I am running because I want to make sure none of us in this world, quite frankly, ever have to go through something where their basic human need is not being met,” Smith said.
“When I should have been focused on prom, which I didn’t go to, when I should have been focused on my academics, which was really hard to do, when I should have been focused on some of the athletics and sports stuff I was doing – it was really hard to excel at that, because the most human, fundamental basic need that I had was not being met: shelter,” he said. “For those who know what it feels like to not have shelter, or insecurity with that, I have to tell you, it is unimaginably painful.”
Pickard, who began her run for county executive in 2024, touted her previous efforts to boost housing opportunities while on the council.
“This issue is near and dear to my heart, and I’ve been working tirelessly to come up with the policies that make sense and actually start building some housing,” Pickard said. “It is the most important issue facing the next generation … We are not going to be a vibrant, exciting place to live for all if we do not fulfill the promise of Anne Arundel County and tackle this issue.
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“It’s complex, it’s challenging. I have a track record of actually getting policy passed and now I’m ready to see it implemented in our communities,” she said.
The three candidates largely agreed on the challenges facing Anne Arundel’s affordable housing issues, such as slow permitting processes and limited public transit options, and exact details on fixing those issues were hard to come by during the forum.
But being able to talk with them face-to-face and share concerns directly was comforting for Seetram, who said she felt more confident in the candidates than before she stepped into the forum.
“I like what they said. Now I just want to know the implementation of what they said,” Seetram said after the forum.
Originally published at Marylandmatters.Org